Deploying SharePoint Workspace 2010 without peer networking

Are you thinking about deploying SharePoint Workspace in your organization but you’re holding off because you don’t want to give SharePoint users access to peer networking workspaces? If so, you can achieve both objectives by configuring a policy that customizes the SharePoint Workspace 2010 deployment to block the use of Groove workspaces.

Here’s how:
1.    First, some preliminaries:
•    Ensure that intended SharePoint Workspace 2010 clients meet the requirements described in System requirements for Office 2010 at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190446.
•    Ensure that your SharePoint Server 2010 ports allow access to SharePoint Workspace clients and that outbound port 80/TCP and/or port 443/TCP is open on intended SharePoint Workspace clients.
2.    Prepare your SharePoint Server 2010 systems to support SharePoint Workspace 2010. For more information about SharePoint Server prerequisites, see the Configure and customize SharePoint Workspace 2010 article at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195847.
And remember that you need the 2010 version of SharePoint Server to support SharePoint Workspace!
3.    Set the necessary client permissions to allow SharePoint Workspace users read/write/create access to designated SharePoint sites (or limit these permissions, as needed). For guidance, see these articles: Managing Site Groups and Permissions at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=162300 and Managing users and specifying permission for a Web site based on Windows SharePoint Services technology at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=162301.
4.    Use Active Directory Group Policy to customize the SharePoint Workspace deployment to set a policy to Prohibit Groove workspaces. Note that SharePoint Workspace 2010 is included with Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. For more information about customizing for SharePoint Workspace deployment, see the Configure SharePoint Workspace 2010 article at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195847.
5.    Test-run your deployment on a client or two. For a test process, see the Test SharePoint Workspace connections article at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195847. On the installed test client, make sure that the option to create or access Groove workspaces is not available on the test client.
6.    Deploy Office 2010 for production.
7.    Create SharePoint workspaces on designated client computers. You can accomplish this as follows:
•    Distribute SharePoint site URLs to SharePoint workspace clients.
•    Instruct users to click the Sync to SharePoint Workspace command from the Site Actions menu on the specified SharePoint site. Users can then synchronize online and offline contributions with SharePoint site content. Groove workspaces will not be available to them. For information about how to use SharePoint Workspace, see the online Help that’s available with SharePoint Workspace.

Mena Paton