[ms office - 2010] Do not display AD photos in Outlook contacts - EXCH 2010

[FN-GM]

Hi,

 

We have photos on AD accounts. I dont want students to see them. I have tried all the below, it makes it so you cant see photos in the GAL but if you right click the user and add to contacts it shows the photo still.

 

Any ideas how i can stop this please?

 

Thanks

 

GAL Photos: Frequently Asked Questions - Exchange Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Q. How can I disable GAL Photos in Outlook?

A. If you don't upload photos to the thumbnailPhoto attribute in Active Directory, they will not be displayed. If you have applications that must use the thumbnailPhoto attribute, but don't want to have the photos displayed in Outlook 2010, you can disable them for Outlook by using the DoNotDisplayPhotograph registry value or the Do not display contact photo group policy setting. The setting is available via the OutlookSocialConnector.adm administrative template. For details and a download link, see How to manage the Outlook Social Connector by using Group Policy.

 

This reg key - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common TurnOffPhotograph=1

 

And i also changed the options maunaully in outlook with the same result.

Edited October 15, 2012 by FN-GM

[FN-GM]

Anyone please?

[sukh]

Sorted?

[FN-GM]

nope

[andyfield]

Not really a fix more a possible loophole...

 

I found that if the cached mode was checked then the pics didn't load in outlook... not sure if you could do this with your students...

 

[sukh]

I have tested both and I don't see the picture, as expected, I will delete the OST and test again

[sukh]

Works as expected, what CU do you have on the clients?

[FN-GM]

what does CU mean?

 

I cant see the pics in the GAL only when i right click > add to contacts from a GAL contact.

[sukh]

Cumulative Update for Office

 

I added the user from the GAL to my contacts in Outlook and it still doesnt show.

[FN-GM]

On Exchange we are bang upto date. I didnt know they had CU for office.

 

Thanks

[sukh]

What happened?

[FN-GM]

What do you mean?

[sukh]

Is it sorted?

Did you apply the latest CU?

[FN-GM]

We are already at the lates CU for exchange.

[sukh]

For Office not Exch,

 

State which one you are on both for Office & Exch

[FN-GM]

@sukh I didnt know office had CU Updates? Where do i get these please?

[sukh]

@sukh I didnt know office had CU Updates? Where do i get these please?

 

Update center

[FN-GM]

If its bang upto date with Microsoft Update we should be ok?

[sukh]

I say yes, has the issue been resolved?

[FN-GM]

No We are bang upto date with Windows updates, still with the issue.

[sukh]

No We are bang upto date with Windows updates, still with the issue.

 

Can you test with online & cache mode?

[FN-GM]

Thought i would look at this again. We still have the same issue with Exchange 2013 and Outlook 2013. Does it both with online and cache mode. Any ideas please?

[jamesb]

I have no idea if this will work or not, but it might be worth a try. Go into AD and set to deny read access to the thumbnailPhoto attribute to the users you want it hidden from.

 

I haven't got a setup to test this on these days, but in theory I think it should work as Outlook pulls the photo from AD under the current user's identity. Whether it'll have any strange side-effects I don't know.

[FN-GM]

Its a thought, will give is a try on the test rig.

[AngryTechnician]

In cached mode this might help:

 

To prevent Outlook cached mode clients from displaying thumbnail photos (remember, the photo is not in the OAB – just a pointer to go fetch it from Active Directory), you can remove the thumbnailPhoto attribute from the ConfiguredAttributes property of an OAB using the following command:

 

$attributes = (Get-OfflineAddressBook "Default Offline Address Book").ConfiguredAttributes

$attributes.Remove("thumbnailphoto,Indicator")

Set-OfflineAddressBook "Default Offline Address Book" -ConfiguredAttributes $attributes

 

Source: GAL Photos in Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 - Exchange Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs