Deploy Maillink/Ribbons in a Citrix/TerminalServer environment

MailLink/Ribbons on Citrix/Terminal-server

The most important question is: Will the customer deploy MailLink/Ribbons to ALL users running in the Citrix/TerminalServer environment? If all users wants MailLink/Ribbons, you can skip reading this document.

NOTE: We’re not using the Shadow key system in the registry anymore, so you shouldn’t need to test or check or do anything to troubleshoot an installation.

Deployment

When deploying MailLink/Ribbons in a TerminalServer/Citrix environment, we use a registry mechanism called Registry propagation built into Microsoft Office.

The requirement to get the Ribbon components, a user needs to have the AddIns registrered in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive of the registry. Since we don’t know who will log in (and new users can be added later on), there is no way for us to write anything to these areas in the registry when we install SuperOffice.

The way we’ve solved this is to register the necessary keys under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive in the registry :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

These keys contain the values that will be copied to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER keys for a user when he/she starts a Microsoft Office program. These keys will be written AFTER any login scripts has been run, so it is impossible to remove them using such a script.

The problem with the above solution is that for every user that logs in and starts any of the Microsoft Office programs, these registry keys will be copied to their local HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive and they will get a question asking them if they want to install SuperOffice Ribbons.

Supporting groups that should have and that should not have MailLink/Ribbons

The correct way to support a scenario where some users/groups should get the MailLink/Ribbons tools is to remove the registry keys mentioned above:

For a regular 32-bit environment:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

64-bit environment:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\12.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeOfficeRibbons

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\User Settings\SuperOfficeRibbons

MailLink (ONLY for MailLink 7.0)

In addition you should remove the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registration to avoid users to get the addin. This is done by removing the following keys:

64-bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\SuperOffice.OutlookAddin

32-bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\SuperOffice.OutlookAddin

When these keys have been removed, none of your users will get the necessary keys copied to their current user settings, so you will need to create Registry settings for those of your users that needs the above settings containing the values found.

Registry scripts to import

Use the following Registry scripts to deploy MailLink/Ribbons to those users/groups that should receive these components.  Remember to substitute the paths with correct filenames for your installation.

The first file is for getting Ribbons installed on 7.1:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\SuperOfficeRibbon-Excel]
"FriendlyName"="SuperOffice Ribbon"
"Description"="SuperOffice Ribbon for Microsoft Office Excel 2007"
"CommandLineSafe"=dword:00000001
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOffice.Ribbon.Excel.vsto|vstolocal"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\Addins\SuperOfficeRibbon-PowerPoint]
"CommandLineSafe"=dword:00000001
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOffice.Ribbon.PowerPoint.vsto|vstolocal"
"FriendlyName"="SuperOffice Ribbon"
"Description"="SuperOffice Ribbon for Microsoft PowerPoint 2007"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\SuperOfficeRibbon-Word]
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOffice.Ribbon.Word.vsto|vstolocal"
"FriendlyName"="SuperOffice Ribbon"
"Description"="SuperOffice Ribbon for Microsoft Word 2007"
"CommandLineSafe"=dword:00000001

PS! Filenames were a bit different in 7.0:

"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOfficeRibbon-Excel.vsto|vstolocal"
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOfficeRibbon-PowerPoint.vsto|vstolocal"
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\Ribbons\\SuperOfficeRibbon-Word.vsto|vstolocal"

The following file is to get MailLink deployed:

For 7.0 only:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\SuperOffice.OutlookAddin]

@=""
"Description"="SuperOffice Outlook Mail Link"
"FriendlyName"="OutlookAddin"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003

For 7.0 and 7.1:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\SuperOfficeRibbon-Outlook]
@=""
"CommandLineSafe"=dword:00000001
"Description"="A link between Outlook and SuperOffice for storing mails and attachments"
"FriendlyName"="SuperOffice Ribbon"
"LoadBehavior"=dword:00000003
"Manifest"="M:\\Program Files\\SuperOffice\\SuperOffice 7 Windows\\MailLink\\SuperOfficeRibbon-Outlook.vsto|vstolocal"