MS OFFICE GPO

[alan-d]

In order to help us tighten things up for post Ranger removal we are using the Office ADM.

 

What policies do you recommend we enable or disable in the GPO. Is there anything in particular we should pay attention to?

[Michael]

Within Office Ork Tools there isn't really anything 'critical' as such to enable or disable, but there is a setting regarding AutoRecovery if ever Office or indeed Windows crashes, the file is recoverable.

 

Go to User Config > Admin Templates > Microsoft Word 2002 > Tools/Options > Save

 

Enable "Save AutoRecover Info" and specify a number of minutes.

 

And also: User Config > Admin Templates > Microsoft Office XP > Tools/Customise/Options

 

Enable "Always show full menus" which myself and other users find useful. Personalised menus for many are just an annoyance!

[_Bob_]

Disable the office assistant!

[Dos_Box]

Ensure your pupils banned from the internet have the options for online help and online clipart disabled, or else the system account will open IE for the user, thereby negating your origional Windows GPOs'.

[Geoff]

Disable the office assistant!

 

Clippy: Hi, I see that you're trying to disable me....

[alan-d]

Disable the office assistant!

 

Funnily enough that was the first one I zapped

 

 

Thanks so far - what about macros? any tips for GPOs - what level do you use?

[Michael]

For Macros I set it so Office prompts the user when they open a document containing Macros. Enabling it completely is a security risk. Prompting the user gives them control to say yay or nay to enabling them.

 

Apparently Clippy has been removed from Office 2007. Shame. I guess that gives me more of an incentive to upgrade! Well done MS

[Geoff]

2007 has a completely revamped GUI. I predict mass confusion.

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/03/09/547281.aspx

 

That OO.org rollout is looking more attractive all the time.

[Dos_Box]

I have to agree. Many here at Chorley towers will be looking at it quite critically.

[NetworkGeezer]

For Macros I set it so Office prompts the user when they open a document containing Macros. Enabling it completely is a security risk. Prompting the user gives them control to say yay or nay to enabling them.

 

The problem with this approach is that soon the users become used to just clicking Enable or yes. Any tried signing macros or other files?

[MkII]

The web toolbar is a nice way to browse the network. Not that they should be able to do anything...

[Michael]

The problem in our experience is that occasionally the LEA provide documents containing Macros which are not signed, so prompting the user is still the better option.

 

I agree that most users will just get used to clicking Allow Macros, but if there is a problem, at least we can determine the source of the problem. The user

 

@Geoff - Hopefully like Windows XP/Vista, Office 2007 will have some form of classic mode option built in. They have to cater for all users.

[Norphy]

I quite like the look of the new interface myself, it looks very straight forward to me. On the mass confusion thing, there are enough complaints about the differences between Office XP and 2003 at my place despite them being nearly identical. I don't think this will be much worse. OK, there will probably be a period of adjustment but I should think people will catch on quickly enough once they start using it.

 

As for disabling macros, I would find out if they actually need to use them first. A lot of our Year 11s and Year 12s need them for their ICT coursework but the 9s and 10s don't. You don't need to make disabling macros a universal thing.

[john]

There is going to be no "Classic" mode in Office 2007, it was announced a while ago if there was, but they were basically saying, its a step forward into the future blah blah blah, so its get used to it, get all new text books again, new posters etc....

[Michael]

I think I'll stick with Office 2003 for the time being. To be honest, there's never been something I've been unable to do, or find out 'how to' with Office 2003. Probably at most I use no more than 30% to 40% of Word's overall functionality!

[Geoff]

Not really good value for money if your only using the features that were present in Office 2000/97 then is it.

[Michael]

Well my prime line of work is system administration. Not a data entry clerk or a secretary who should use MS Word more to its full capability Then again our office staff don't know how to do a mail merge, but that's another story...

 

You could apply the same rule to people with mobile phones. People spend hundreds on phones for the looks and the colour screen etc... but I remember reading a survey which discovered most people used only 10% of the functionality on their phone.