Place Outlook shortcut on All Users' desktops via Group policy

Hello I am looking for a way to deploy a desktop shortcut to all of our Windows 7 machines for Microsoft Outlook. The difficulty I am running into is that we have x86 and x64 versions of Microsoft Office installed on the machines, and no easy way to identify
which is which.
Does anyone have a suggestion of how to create a single Group Policy that could place an Outlook shortcut on the public desktop which would work regardless of what version is installed?

If all of Office suite (e.g. Office 15) installed in default path, please deploy the following script and run it locally:
Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strDesktopFolder = objShell.SpecialFolders("Desktop")
Set objShortCut = objShell.CreateShortcut(strDesktopFolder & _
"\Outlook.lnk")
objShortCut.TargetPath = chr(34) & "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\OUTLOOK.EXE" & chr(34)
ObjShortCut.IconLocation = "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\OUTLOOK.EXE, 0"
objShortCut.Save
The following application path is also ok in this vbs
%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office 2013\Outlook 2013.lnk
Thanks.
Tony Chen
TechNet Community Support

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We use OL2010 with Exchange 2010 in a Windows 2008 R2 AD environment
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Make sure you have the correct adm:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2426686
The feature you probably want to disable is the
RPC/HTTP Connection Flags and set to None or 0. You'll have to test that out.
Twitter!: Please Note: My Posts are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.

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Hello,
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Creating an shortcut for all users on the desktop

I want to create a shortcut for all users on the desktop that will appear for all users that login to the computer. How is this done in Windows 7? In Widows XP this was done at the "All Users" profile, but I cannot find such a profile in Windows 7.

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Do you have a question? If so then your best bet is to create a new post (this one is 5 years old and marked as "answered"!) and spell it out there.

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I want to copy a PDF file to all users' desktops, so I created a GPP to do this and it works if I place the source file, the PDF, on a shared folder.
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When I put this in Explorer on the test machine:
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Event Viewer:
Log Name:      Application
Source:        Group Policy Files
Date:          27/12/2014 7:39:38 PM
Event ID:      4098
Task Category: (2)
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      TestWS.mydomain.com
Description:
The user 'APAC IT Support Contact Details final.pdf' preference item in the 'APAC - Add IP Support Document to Workstation {E31F55EA-EF46-400B-A77A-012ECF400EC7}' Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x80070002 The system cannot
find the file specified.' This error was suppressed.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
    <Provider Name="Group Policy Files" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="34305">4098</EventID>
    <Level>3</Level>
    <Task>2</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-12-27T08:39:38.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>258023</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>TestWS.mydomain.com</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
    <Data>user</Data>
    <Data>APAC IT Support Contact Details final.pdf</Data>
    <Data>APAC - Add IP Support Document to Workstation {E31F55EA-EF46-400B-A77A-012ECF400EC7}</Data>
    <Data>0x80070002 The system cannot find the file specified.</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
Strange!

How to deploy a file on all users C drive via group policy

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Hi,
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Computer Configuration / User Configuration - Preferences - Windows Settings - Files
More on this here.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772536.aspx
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Regards,
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I am looking to disable this option via Group Policy on our domain, but am unable to find a default policy related to this setting. I am searching Group Policy on a Server 2012 machine, and in local Group Policy in Windows 8, but have found nothing.
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TechNet Community Support
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Automatic Windows Update via Group Policy in Windows 8

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Cheers, Sparcx [MCTS,MCITP-EA]

Hi Leon, yes i have read the blog that you gave, It says that Windows 8 requires a KB update to roll the changes that will solve this issue. However its also said that the update is included in Windows 8.1 and there's no need to update to solve the Automatic
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How to control IE10's "Compatibility View settings" via Group Policy

First
of all thanks for taking the time to read this. I must let you know that I have limited experience with Group Policy so here it goes...
Domain Controllers are 2008 R2 Datacenter and client computers are Win7 Pro with IE10
I need to add several sites to the "Compatibility View settings" in IE10 and have these pushed out via Group Policy.
I followed this to enable the "Use Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites:"
Use
Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites
I even added the settings to both User Configuration as well as Computer Configuration. However the computers on the domain wouldn't show these sites in
IE even after forcing a GP update (gpupdate /force)
Yes I did use top level domain names.
Next I installed the Administrative Templates for Windows Internet Explorer 10 on the DC:
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this gave me an Inetres.adm file while I put in the same location as my other .adm files that Group Policy Manager sees (located at C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\Adm)
I do see a bunch of .ADMX files located at C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions
on the DC. I also see a lot of .ADML files located at C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US.
Where is my Central Store located that my Group Policy references? How do I know what location GP is reading from?
Now I installed the Administrative Templates (ADMX) for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 from here:
Administrative Templates (ADMX) for Windows Server 2008 R2 and
Windows 7
This gave me a "Win7-2008R2-admx.msi" package that I installed. I took the defaults and extracted contents to:
C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\Server 2008 Win7\PolicyDefinitions
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If I mouse-over "Administrative Templates" in Group Policy Manager is says that the policy definitions are retrieved from the local machine.
I then right-clicked on top of "Administrative
Templates" in Group Policy Manager and highlighted Inetres and selected Delete.
While in Add/Remove Templates I click on Add and it defaults to looking for "Policy Templates" and will not let me select and .ADM/.ADML/.ADMX files.
What am I doing wrong here?
How do I know that I'm using the most recent Inetres file?
How do I know which file Group Policy Manager is using to manage the IE settings that are in:
User Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Internet Explorer->Compatibility View->Use Policy List of Internet
Explorer 7 sites
or
Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Internet Explorer->Compatibility View->Use Policy List of
Internet Explorer 7 sites.
Is there anything else you can suggest?
Many, many thanks in advance for any response

Hi,
Regarding your question, usually we create a Central Store for Administrative Templates (Both .admx and .adml files), and create a folder that is named PolicyDefinitions in the following location:
\\FQDN\SYSVOL\FQDN\policies. The .adml files on the Windows computer
are stored in a language-specific folder. For example, English (United States) .adml files are stored in a folder that is named "en-US." When you have copied all .admx and .adml files, the PolicyDefinitions folder on the domain controller should contain the
.admx files and one or more folders that contain language-specific .adml files.
Please refer to the following articles. You will get more helpful details about the Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Template files.
How to create the Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Template files in Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929841
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and the Group Policy Central Store
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2009/12/09/windows-7-windows-server-2008-r2-and-the-group-policy-central-store.aspx
Based on your description, I understand you enable the setting “Use Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites”. However, didn’t show any sites in IE in client even after forcing a GP update
(gpupdate /force). Please use command “gpresult” in clients to collect the GPOs, and then check whether the GPO contain the setting “Use Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites” was applied to clients or wasn’t.
In addition, you also can change the related setting by using registry directly.
Follow the path of the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Policies->Microsoft->Internet Explorer->BrowserEmulation->PolicyList. (Create registry folders
manually if not present)
Right Click
PolicyList ->New->String Value->Enter the name of the website. (Both under ‘Name’ and ‘Data’. For example,
Value name: example.com Value data: example.com)
There is a similar question, please read as a reference.
Add manually URL on Compatibility View List in IE10
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/ie/en-US/5a15e861-d106-471e-a968-fdea15e31c45/add-manually-url-on-compatibility-view-list-in-ie10
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu

The Group Policy Client Side Extension Group Policy Shortcuts may have caused th e Group Policy Service to terminate unexpectedly.

Hi all,
Having an issue with the shortcuts Group Policy extension applying to our Windows 7 machines. It was working until last Wednesday and since then users get a Group Policy Client service error when logging in.
We have narrowed it down to the shortcuts extension, if the extension is disabled then a user can log in, if enabled and empty then the following error comes up. With all the investigation we have done so far it seems as though something on the client is
making this happen.
We have –
Copied the original policy
Exported and imported the policy
Deleted all the shortcuts
Deleted all the shortcuts and created a brand new shortcut
And the same thing happens. Only if you right click on the Shortcut Extension and select disable then the user can log in
When running Gpupdate /force we get the following error
The Group Policy Client Side Extension Group Policy Shortcuts may have caused the Group Policy Service to terminate unexpectedly. To prevent further failures inthe
Group Policy Service, this extension has been temporarily disabled until after the next system restart. Group Policy settings managed by this extension may no
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The Group Policy Client Side Extension Group Policy Internet Settings may have caused the Group Polcy Service to terminate unexpectedly. To prevent further failures
in the Group Policy Service, this extension has been temporarily disabled until after the next system restart. Group Policy settings managed by this extension
may no longer be enforced until the system is restarted. The vendor of this extension should be contacted if this issue recurs.
Has anyone come across this before?
Thanks

Hi Dejul,
How is the issue going? Does this issue happen to all Windows 7 clients? I am not sure this can be helpful but we can give it a try to install the following hotfix.
Some Group Policy preferences are not applied successfully on computers that are running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979731
Besides, please make sure that our clients are patched or updated to the latest.
An enterprise hotfix rollup is available for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2775511
TechNet Subscriber Support
If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.
Best regards,
Frank Shen

Disable Private Browsing via Group policy

We are a medium sized business using Firefox 27.0.1. I have been looking for a way to control private browsing via group policy for a while but there are no clear answers on how a system administrator can do this without a convoluted process of editing files that can't be found anywhere on a computer.
Our environment:
windows 2008 DC
using group policy
500 users, all windows
Do not use any proxy or L7 filtering
I've looked into using the adm file that is available from the link below. I've sifted through the code and followed instructions for the lockdown process for Computer and User configuration; however, nothing works.
http://4sysops.com/archives/group-policy-for-firefox-and-chrome/#download-the-adm-files
If someone can point me to a registry entry or a vbs file that can be used as a start up script, it would be greatly appreciated by myself and all the system administrators of the world that are trying to decrease private browsing in organizations.
Between the 3 major browsers we are using on our Windows platform (IE, Chrome Firefox); Firefox seems to be a challenge to control. I have been successful in controlling settings via group policy for the other two. I'm working on a cumulative step by step document for this and will share with the world when I am able to configure Firefox.

Thanks for those suggestions; however, they don't help sysadmins that already have the non-enterprise version in their environment. From what I gather, there really isn't a straightforward way of doing this via group policy in a Windows environment without first removing the app and then deploying it with customizations (using tools suggested).
I guess I'll go with the answer "No, there isn't a straighforward way of controlling Firefox through Group policy".

Block USB drive via Group Policy but keyboard, mouse, printers will work

Hi
We are using Windows Server 2008 R2 Std Edition and on clinet XP SP2
We want to block USB Storage via Group Policy and allow Keyboard and mouse to work.
Any suggestion will appreciate.
regards
Arvind
Arvind

Hi,
In 2008 you can use the below GPO.
User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ System \ Removable Storage Access \ All Removable Storage classes: Deny all access.
Force a Restart to Ensure Removable Storage Access Policy is Enforced
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771896(v=WS.10).aspx
Deny All Access to Removable Devices or Media
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772540(v=WS.10).aspx
For "legacy" clients:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555324
Regards,
Rafic
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Place Outlook shortcut on All Users' desktops via Group policy

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