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%\Microsoft\Office

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%\Microsoft\Office
set remotedir=\\MyServer\LogonFiles\public\OfficeUI 
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