SMB port lockout makes remote *.pst link undeletable

[Jack Courtney]

Recently, apparently faced with an unfortunate surplus of
MS Windows hackers and a population that, on average, had
no interest in patching their machines, our campus SYSOPs
decided to shut down all NETBIOS-related ports on all
routers with off-campus lines, including both ports used
by SMB (yes, they closed 445 as well). Of course, this
makes all previously established SMB mounts non-
functional, and this fact forms the basis for my question.

Many people on campus had SMB mounts on off-campus
machines which supported links from Outlook to remote
*.pst files. Of course, these links are now broken; but,
MS Outlook apparently provides no way to delete these
broken links.

While I can locate the base info (an MRUList for .pst plus
a few other keys) for the Outlook links within the
registry, I am wary about deleting these keys alone.

If you have already found a viable solution to this
frustrating situation, please let me know what you have
discovered.

Regards,
Dr. Jack Courtney
Dept. of Mathematics
Michigan State University.

 

[Cherry Qian]

Hi Dr. Jack Courtney,

Thank you for the posting. As you indicated, your SMB port 445 have been
blocked which results in all previously established SMB mounts
non-functional. Those links from Outlook to remote *.pst files are now
broken. You would like to delete the MRU List for .pst but you are wary
about deleting these keys alone.

To clear the MRU list, we need to delete the registry keys.

Please locate the appropriate registry key for your version of Microsoft
Windows:

NOTE: The following registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for
readability.

Microsoft Windows NT or Microsoft Windows 2000:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WIndowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows
Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\<user_profile>\0a0d020000000000c000000000000046\101e0384

Microsoft Windows 95:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Windows
Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\<user_profile>\0a0d020000000000c000000000000046\101e0384

Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Messaging
ubSystem\Profiles\<user_profile>\0a0d020000000000c000000000000046\101e0384

Export and delete the 101e0384 key.

Start Outlook. The MRU list should be cleared.

More information:

445 (TCP) port is Server message block (SMB) for Netlogon, LDAP conversion
and distributed file system (Dfs) discovery. For more information on this,
please refer to this knowledge base article:

280132 XCCC: Exchange 2000 Windows 2000 Connectivity Through Firewalls
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=280132

For more information on Remote Mail in Outlook, please refer to this
knowledge base article:

195436 OL2000: (CW) Remote Mail, Offline Folders, and Working Offline
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=195436

Hope the above information and suggestion helps and answers your question.
If anything is unclear, please let me know.


Sincerely,

Cherry Qian
MCSE2000, MCSA2000, MCDBA2000
Microsoft Partner Online Support


Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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