Default Outlook Profile

Hello everyone. I am an IT staff of one for a non-profit organization. We recently updated our Exchange server to a new physical box and to Exchange 2013. I am running into a small problem. Back with Office 2007, I used a customized install to pre-answer the questions to setup user's Outlook. (Our staff have a remarkable ability to work with children -- not computers.) It worked great, but, with the new Exchange server, the answers are now wrong.

I only have a problem when a new user logs into Outlook for the first time. They get a series of error messages and Outlook eventually just gives up. It is easily fixed by deleting the (bad) profile and re-creating. But, I get the call to fix the problem with every new user and every time an old user uses a new computer (happens a lot with us).

My question is: where is that default profile for new users stored and can I update it or remove it? I thought about a startup script that checks for and deletes the bad profile but the bad profile doesn't even exist for a user until they try to run Outlook for the first time, at which point I get called. I have a new image with a corrected install to go forward with, but it doesn't help with the already installed computers.

Thank you to anyone who can help me with this. And, thanks also to Microsoft who has always been very generous with their software to the non-profit community.

February 23rd, 2015 6:28pm

how did you customize the installtion? via prf usig OCT?

what kind of error message did yo

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February 25th, 2015 10:24am

Hi Ricky,

The profile information are stored in the following registry value based on the version of Outlook you are using:

In Outlook 2010 and earlier version, profiles information are stored in the registry at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles

In Outlook 2013, profiles information are stored in the registry at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Profiles

We can try to delete the registry value using the instructions listed in the following article:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753092.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

In addition, would you please tell us the exact error messages you got so that we can understand the issue more clearly?

Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

February 25th, 2015 9:27pm

If you deployed Office with the prf-file, then it usually is in the installation folder of Office. It is directly applied upon starting Outlook.

In many organization configuration, it is no longer needed to deploy a prf-file at all. The settings are automatically found for the logged on user via a combination of Active Directory, Auto Account Setup and Exchange AutoDiscover.

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February 26th, 2015 1:37pm

Dear Ricky,

Just wanted to say hi and check if there is anything that I can do for you on this problem.If so, please do not hesitate to let me know and I will be happy to help.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

March 2nd, 2015 1:02am

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to help me with my problem. I was able to use the information from the first response to get a success on a Google search. It lead me to (I can't post a link)

The instructions there were useful with a couple of changes:

First, the registry entry was in HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\15.0\UserSettings\{GUID here}\Create\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Outlook. According to the poster the GUID is random.

Second, I had other customizations there. So, instead of deleting the whole GUID, I deleted just the Outlook subkey. That worked for me just fine.

Again, thank you to everyone for your help.

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March 4th, 2015 4:49pm

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to help me with my problem. I was able to use the information from the first response to get a success on a Google search. It lead me to (I can't post a link)

The instructions there were useful with a couple of changes:

First, the registry entry was in HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\15.0\UserSettings\{GUID here}\Create\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Outlook. According to the poster the GUID is random.

Second, I had other customizations there. So, instead of deleting the whole GUID, I deleted just the Outlook subkey. That worked for me just fine.

Again, thank you to everyone for your help.

March 4th, 2015 9:48pm

Glad to hear that you have found the solution. Thank you for sharing it here.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan

Forum Support

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March 5th, 2015 4:16am

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