HOW TO: Use Registry Keys to Set Windows Messenger Policies for Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging Deployments (328212)

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Windows Messenger version 4.6 (the real-time communications [RTC] client for Microsoft Windows XP), you can use registry keys to manually set policies. By using registry keys to set policy control values in the registry, you can specify which policies you want to enforce on Windows Messenger.

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Use Registry Keys to Set Windows Messenger Policies for Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging Deployments

The following registry keys control the policies on the Windows Messenger client. All the registry values discussed in this article exist in either of the following registry keys:

1. Click Start, click Run in Open type, regedit, and then click OK.
2. To view the following keys, in the console tree, expand locate both of the following keys.
   • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client

The location of the registry values for policy control depends on whether the policy applies to all users or the current user. If a registry value for policy control is found (either enabled or disabled) in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Windows Messenger applies that policy control even if the registry value is the opposite in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. For example, if the DisableVideo feature is enabled in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and disabled in HKEY_CURRENT_USER, the policy control to enable the feature prevails.

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Troubleshooting

• Registry key values in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE override the key values in HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
• By default, all features controlled by policies are enabled, unless setting appropriate values in the registry keys explicitly disables them. To disable a feature, the registry key must be set to a value of 1. If the registry key is set to 0, or any other value, or if the key is not present in the registry, it is equivalent to 0 and therefore the feature is enabled.

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