Office Communicator 2007 R2 Group Policy Settings

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

One way to provide the appropriate registry settings for each user when you are deploying Office Communicator 2007 R2 is to define Group Policy settings by using an administrative template (.adm) file. Administrative template files contain specific information about which Group Policy settings the application implements, where policies are stored, and how to configure policies.

To define Group Policy settings by using the Communicator 2007 R2 administrative template file

1. Copy the Communicator.adm file from your distribution disk to the %windir%/inf folder.

2. Use Microsoft Management Console Group Policy Object Editor to enable or disable specific policy settings.

You can deploy Communicator 2007 R2 Group Policies without affecting users who are running Communicator 2005.

Group Policy Precedence

Some Communicator 2007 R2 features and behavior can be configured by the administrator who is using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in-band provisioning, or by the user through the Communicator 2007 R2 Options dialog box. However, Group Policy settings take precedence over both methods.

Table 1 summarizes the order in which settings take precedence when a conflict occurs.

Table 1. Order of precedence for Group Policy settings, in-band provisioning, and Options dialog box settings

Precedence	Location or Method of Setting
1	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
2	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
3	Office Communications Server 2007 in-band provisioning
4	Communicator 2007 R2 Options dialog box

Group Policy Updates

The primary reference for current Group Policy settings is the Client_2007_R2_Group_Policy_Settings.xls file, which contains a full definition and values for each policy.

Office Communicator 2007 R2 Group Policy additions are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. New Group Policy settings

Policy Name	Definition
AllowSimultaneousRinging	Allows "simul-ring" (simultaneously ring an additional number when receiving incoming calls). WMI class is MSFT_SIPGlobalUCPolicyData.
DisableHTMLIM	Disables HTML instant messages.
EnableFullScreenVideoPreviewDisabled	Enables full-screen video with the correct aspect ratio and disables video preview for all Communicator video calls.
PlayAbbrDialTone	Changes the length of the dial tone from a 30-second dial tone to a fading, 3-second dial tone.
ConferenceAccess	Controls whether a conference uses Open Authenticated access or Anonymous access.
PC2PCASEncryption	For peer-to-peer desktop sharing, controls whether encryption is turned on or off. Note: For conferences, desktop sharing reuses the pool setting for A/V encryption, which also turns desktop sharing encryption on or off
DisableApplicationSharingControl	Prevents the user from sharing control with anyone during desktop sharing. This setting applies regardless of who started or organized the conference. Set in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE only. Cannot be set on a per-user basis.