Appending Outlook safe senders list via GPO

Question

I am trying to append a known safe email address to my list of 'Safe Senders' in Outlook 2007 and 2010.
In our GPO I went into the ADM file for Office 2010, edited the Options > Preferences > Junk Email > Specify path to safe senders list
In there I put the UNC of our server which would be similar to \\comboi\home$\admin\SafeSenders.txt
But when I get my new policy, and then start Outlook the email address isn't added.......could it be a permission issue on the admin folder?  What would it need to be set as?
Has anyone done this and maybe offer a direction to look in?  Or if you know what it is, that would be great! :)
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi,
Here are the steps to publish a safe senders list through group policy. The first two steps are not required, but recommend for this solution.
1) Set expectations that even after implementing this policy, you cannot guarantee that the issue will never happen again.
2) Allow domain.com through any centralized spam filtering systems.
3) Create a .txt file that stores a list of safe senders (domains or addresses) each on a new line
4) Save the .txt file to a file share that is accessible by all clients. I put it on \\DC\Netlogon
5) Add the Office 2010 Administrative Template (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=64b837b6-0aa0-4c07-bc34-bec3990a7956&displaylang=en)
to group policy.
6) Create a new GPO for customizing Outlook or Office.
7) In the GPO go to User Configuration>Policies>Administrative Templates>Microsoft Office Outlook 2010> Options > Preferences > Junk Email
8) Open Specify path to Safe Senders list
9) Set this policy to enabled and specify that path to the .txt file you saved in step 4.
10) Now, here was the catch. This setting indeed tells Outlook where to locate the import file. It does not, however, tell Outlook to actually go import the file. This is done through a registry key. So in the same GPO navigate to User Configuration>Preferences>Windows
Settings>Registry
11) Right Click Registry and select New Registry Item.
12) Set the properties to the following:
Action: Update
Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key Path:Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
Value Name: JunkMailImportLists
Value Type: REG_DWORD
Value Data:1
Base: Decimal
Apply the group policy, and the next time GP is updated on the client and Outlook is restarted, the safe sender list will be imported.
Hope it helps.