Outlook 2000 & 2003 variables with PRF

[Guest]

We are having a problem our PRF profile generator in Outlook 2003, everything
else works perfect except when a brand new Outlook 2003 profile is created
the mail account name shows up as whatever you put under "PROFILENAME" under
section 1 in the PRF, see below.

As it has below "ProfileName=%username%" in the mail account name it shows
up as "%username%" or whatever we put in that field after the “=†sign. I
know we can change that to say “ProfileName=Microsoft Exchange Server†or
“ProfileName=Default Outlook Settings†for example. But in our Outlook 2000
profile generator we were able to use an environment variable and here is our
line, ProfileName=$USERNAME$, it pulled the user’s network login name
automatically.

; Section 1 - Profile Defaults
; ******************************************************** [General]
Custom=1
BackupProfile=NO
ProfileName=%username%
DefaultProfile=Yes
OverwriteProfile=Yes
ModifyDefaultProfileIfPresent=TRUE
______________________________________________________

The problem there is if I put for example "ProfileName=Default Outlook
Settings" in the PRF when the newprof.prf runs when outlook 2003 opens for
first time in the profile name in Mail in control panel it will show up as
"Default Outlook Settings" whereas in Outlook 2000 you could put a variable
like %username% and it would pull their username and show it as their
username instead of "Default Outlook Settings"

Our only concern is with clients with a PDA. If a computer is on Office
2000, our current environment variable sets the outlook 2000 prof name as
their username, it is reimaged and gets Outlook 20003, with current prf it
sets name as default as mentioned above like "Default Outlook Settings.†So
when you go to sync the palm it doesn’t sync.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You cannot use an environment variable for ProfileName in Outlook 2002 or
2003. Instead, pick a nice descriptive name that will work for everyone.
This will make tech support easier, by the way, as it will allow support
techs to ask users to invoke a particular profile by name and check its
settings. You should be able to make the Palm sync program use that profile.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Sue for the quick response, is there a Microsoft site that references
this as well? I have searched everywhere in there including the Outlook 2003
PRF whitepaper and such and found nothing mentioning this. It is a real
downfall if they don't utilize the environment variable.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306932

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Guest]

Thank you Sue for that and your help. That is unfortunate, not sure why they
would change that.