Deploying User Cutomizations & Office suit setting for M$ Office via Group Policy

Hello internetzzz

As an Administrator, you might run in to situations that requires you to Deploy UI customizations such as customized Ribbon, Quick toolbars, etc for Office applications on user Computers, or in my case Terminal servers.

here is a quick and dirty guide on how to do this via group policy.

For instance, lets say we have to deploy a button to initiate a 3rd party productivity program with in outlook and MS word.

First off, make the necessary changes to outlook or word on a Client pc running MS office.

To customize the Ribbon

  • On the File tab, click Options, and then click Customize Ribbon to open the Ribbon customization dialog.

To customize the Quick Access Toolbar

  • On the File tab, click Options, and then click Quick Access Toolbar to open the Quick Access Toolbar customization dialog.

You can also export your Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar customizations into a file.

 

when we make changes to the default Ribbon these user customizations are saved in as .officeUI Files

%localappdata%MicrosoftOffice

The file names will differ according to the office program and the portion of the Ribbon UI  you customized.

Application Description Of .Ribbon File .officeUI File Name
Outlook 2010 Outlook Explorer olkexplorer.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Contact olkaddritem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Appointment/Meeting (organizer on compose, organizer after compose, attendee) olkapptitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Contact Group (formerly known as Distribution List) olkdlstitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Journal Item olklogitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Mail Compose olkmailitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Mail Read olkmailread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Multimedia Message Compose olkmmsedit.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Multimedia Message Read olkmmsread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Received Meeting Request olkmreqread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Forward Meeting Request olkmreqsend.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Post Item Compose olkpostitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Post Item Read olkpostread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 NDR olkreportitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Send Again Item olkresenditem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Counter Response to a Meeting Request olkrespcounter.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Received Meeting Response olkresponseread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Edit Meeting Response olkresponsesend.officeUI
Outlook 2010 RSS Item olkrssitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Sharing Item Compose olkshareitem.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Sharing Item Read olkshareread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Text Message Compose olksmsedit.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Text Message Read olksmsread.officeUI
Outlook 2010 Task Item (Task/Task Request, etc.) olktaskitem.officeUI
Access 2010 Access Ribbon Access.officeUI
Excel 2010 Excel Ribbon Excel.officeUI
InfoPath 2010 InfoPath Designer Ribbon IPDesigner.officeUI
InfoPath 2010 InfoPath Editor Ribbon IPEditor.officeUI
OneNote 2010 OneNote Ribbon OneNote.officeUI
PowerPoint PowerPoint Ribbon PowerPoint.officeUI
Project 2010 Project Ribbon MSProject.officeUI
Publisher 2010 Publisher Ribbon Publisher.officeUI
*SharePoint 2010 SharePoint Workspaces Ribbon GrooveLB.officeUI
*SharePoint 2010 SharePoint Workspaces Ribbon GrooveWE.officeUI
SharePoint Designer 2010 SharePoint Designer Ribbon spdesign.officeUI
Visio 2010 Visio Ribbon Visio.officeUI
Word 2010 Word Ribbon Word.officeUI

You can use these files and push it via Group policy using a simple start up script..

@echo off 
setlocal
set userdir=%localappdata%MicrosoftOffice
set remotedir=\MyServerLogonFilespublicOfficeUI 
for %%r in (Word Excel PowerPoint) do if not exist %userdir%%%r.officeUI cp %remotedir%%%r.officeUI %userdir%%%r.officeUI
endlocal 

A basic script to copy .officeUI files from a network share into the user’s local AppData directory, if no .officeUI file currently exists there.
Can easily be modified to use the roaming AppData directory (replace %localappdata% with %appdata%) or to include additional ribbon customizations.

 

Managing Office suit setting via Group Policy

Download and import the ADM templates to the Group policy object editor.
This will allow you to  manage settings Security, UI related options, Trust center, etc.. on office 2010 using GPO

Download Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML)

hopefully, this will be help full to someone..
until next time cháo