PRF Files (Automatic Outlook profile creation)

I have done some research on auto creating outlook profiles, and I was successful in creating a one click, automatic profile creation process. In this article, I will describe briefly how I set it up, and how it works. If anyone is interested in more detail, and whether there is any interest in pursuing implementation of such a system (highly recommended), let us talk about it, and I will be happy to do a live demonstration of it.

Setting up the PRF file:

In order to setup the PRF file, the office setup needs to be run with the /admin option (Office 2007), and the Custom Installation Wizard on Office 2003). In the next steps, I will refer only to the 2007 setups.

In the admin setup, the last section is related to Outlook:

 
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A new profile is named, on this screen. The next screen is where the Exchange profile is setup:

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Notice that the “Username” is specified as a variable. The profile will be created based on the currently logged on user. This makes it easy to create a generic profile and place it in a common location that could be used universally.

The next screen is where the RPC over HTTP profile is setup. This setup will allow the users to access their Outlook even when they’re not on campus, without requiring them to be connected via VPN

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In the next section, additional Outlook accounts (Address Books, PSTs will be added). This is where we would specify the user’s PST archive file.

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Notice that in the second screen, we are specifying the location of the PST file, as well as its name, the way it shows up in outlook. This particular naming convention will make the archive show up as “Georges Archive” in this case, like so:

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Now that the profile is all setup, the PRF file is ready to be exported:

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Though I have stated the process for creating the PRF, it is merely only for information purposes, as this wouldn’t have to be recreated again.

At this point, we can just import that PRF file with a command line, which can be included in a batch file that the user can run, or on their login script.

The command line is this: “c:\program files\Microsoft Office\Office12” /importprf “<path>/CVUSDRPC.PRF”

Once this command line is ran, the Outlook login screen will show up:

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Which allows the profile to be created, after which, the login screen will pop up one more time for the user to login to Outlook.

Once logged in, the PST file will show up as pictured above.

Additionally, options within the admin setup can allow us to specify the default  location for PST and OST, as well as Archiving settings, the same way the user would on an individual basis, as shown in the screenshot below:

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Note that this setting will only affect new Outlook installations. Preexisting installations of Outlook can be configured via Domain Group Policies.