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share code 09-Feb-2010 11:13

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Code level: advanced Code area: Outlook Expert Techniques Printer Friendly Version
Title: Set email account signature in Outlook 2003
Description: Outlook 2003 makes it particularly difficult to set the signature for new messages and replies/forwards because each mail account has its own signature. This sample script uses the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface and something of a "brute force" approach to set a signature on all services, even those that aren't email accounts.
Date: 30-Mar-2005 02:10
Code level: advanced
Code area: Outlook Expert Techniques
Posted by: Sue Mosher
Body: ' Use this version to set all accounts ' in the default mail profile ' to use a previously created signature Call SetDefaultSignature("Signature Name", "") ' Use this version (and comment the other) to ' modify a named profile. 'Call SetDefaultSignature _ ' ("Signature Name", "Profile Name") Sub SetDefaultSignature(strSigName, strProfile) Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001 strComputer = "." If Not IsOutlookRunning Then Set objreg = GetObject("winmgmts:" & _ "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _ strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv") strKeyPath = "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\" & _ "CurrentVersion\Windows " & _ "Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\" ' get default profile name if none specified If strProfile = "" Then objreg.GetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, _ strKeyPath, "DefaultProfile", strProfile End If ' build array from signature name myArray = StringToByteArray(strSigName, True) strKeyPath = strKeyPath & strProfile & _ "\9375CFF0413111d3B88A00104B2A6676" objreg.EnumKey HKEY_CURRENT_USER, strKeyPath, _ arrProfileKeys For Each subkey In arrProfileKeys strsubkeypath = strKeyPath & "\" & subkey 'On Error Resume Next objreg.SetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, _ strsubkeypath, "New Signature", myArray objreg.SetBinaryValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER, _ strsubkeypath, "Reply-Forward Signature", myArray Next Else strMsg = "Please shut down Outlook before " & _ "running this script." MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "SetDefaultSignature" End If End Sub Function IsOutlookRunning() strComputer = "." strQuery = "Select * from Win32_Process " & _ "Where Name = 'Outlook.exe'" Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _ & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" _ & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set colProcesses = objWMIService.ExecQuery(strQuery) For Each objProcess In colProcesses If UCase(objProcess.Name) = "OUTLOOK.EXE" Then IsOutlookRunning = True Else IsOutlookRunning = False End If Next End Function Public Function StringToByteArray _ (Data, NeedNullTerminator) Dim strAll strAll = StringToHex4(Data) If NeedNullTerminator Then strAll = strAll & "0000" End If intLen = Len(strAll) \ 2 ReDim arr(intLen - 1) For i = 1 To Len(strAll) \ 2 arr(i - 1) = CByte _ ("&H" & Mid(strAll, (2 * i) - 1, 2)) Next StringToByteArray = arr End Function Public Function StringToHex4(Data) ' Input: normal text ' Output: four-character string for each character, ' e.g. "3204" for lower-case Russian B, ' "6500" for ASCII e ' Output: correct characters ' needs to reverse order of bytes from 0432 Dim strAll For i = 1 To Len(Data) ' get the four-character hex for each character strChar = Mid(Data, i, 1) strTemp = Right("00" & Hex(AscW(strChar)), 4) strAll = strAll & Right(strTemp, 2) & Left(strTemp, 2) Next StringToHex4 = strAll End Function
All 95comments

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	Sue Mosher 30-Mar-2005 10:16 NOTES: 1) This technique is officially unsupported. The only supported methods for modifying profile settings are Extended MAPI programming (which can't be scripted) and .prf files, which can't dig deeply enough into the profile settings to set signatures. 2) This sample sets both the new and reply/forward signatures. You might want to modify it to change only one or the other. For a good introduction to WMI scripting, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnclinic/html/scripting06112002.asp For another WMI script to set the Outlook Address Book display order to Last, First, see http://www.outlookcode.com/codedetail.aspx?id=804
	Sue Mosher 08-Apr-2005 11:50 Don't forget to change "Signature Name" to the actual name of the signature you want or "" if you want no signature.
	Anonymous 14-Apr-2005 11:27 Sue, how can you set it so that if there is no Outlook profile that it will just exit out of the script and not error out.
	Sue Mosher 15-Apr-2005 08:04 You mean if the user has never run Outlook at all? I guess that after the first If strProfile = "" block, you could add another: If strProfile = "" Then Exit Sub End If
	Sue Mosher 01-Jun-2005 13:50 The KB article at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=898076 describes a post SP1 hotfix for Outlook and Word 2003. If you apply it, delete the First-Run value as described in the article, and then set NewSignature and ReplySignature REG_SZ (string) values in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\MailSettings key to the name of the desired signature, that signature will be the default for all accounts, and the user won't be able to change that default.
	Stuart 17-Jun-2005 21:26 Is there a way to modify this code to automatically cycle through all the available signatures?
	Sue Mosher 01-Jul-2005 11:32 Stuart, all the available signatures would be stored as filed in the user's Signatures folder, if that's what you're asking.
	Sue Mosher 14-Sep-2005 08:13 Note that this script is from my book, "Configuration Microsoft Outlook 2003." You can get more information on the book at http://www.turtleflock.com/olconfig/index.htm
	Sue Mosher 17-Oct-2005 11:49 The fix mentioned in my 01-Jun-2005 post has been incorporated into Office 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
	Geoffrey 30-Nov-2005 07:17 Hi the script works great. I don't have a lot of scripting knowledge but my company wants the first and lastname and department of the user in the signature as well. Is this posible? Is there a way to retreive this with LDAP from the AD?
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