Some Configurations Require Third Parties
The Office Administrative Templates let you exert much control over your Office
deployments. However, not all configuration capabilities are supported. For
example, the most common configuration request is to have the ability to pre-create
Microsoft Outlook profiles with the email server options that you want your
users to have the first time they launch Outlook. Unfortunately, this basic
setup isn't supported in any versions of the Office Administrative Templates.
For that reason, you have to rely on third-party vendors for help. Several vendors
provide products that extend Group Policy's native capabilities to add advanced
Office configuration support, including DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker Standard
Edition (now part of Microsoft), Quest Software's Group Policy Extensions for
Desktops, and ScriptLogic's Desktop Authority. ScriptLogic's product lets you
control Outlook profiles outside of Group Policy. Both DesktopStandard's product
and Quest's product are implemented as extensions to Group Policy, letting you
use your existing Group Policy infrastructure to deploy the Outlook configuration
I mentioned earlier as well as other configuration scenarios not supported by
the Office Administrative Templates.
With Group Policy Software Installation for Office deployment and Office Administrative
Templates to lock down the behavior of various Office applications for your
users, you can ease the burden of managing what has historically been a large
and complicated software suite. And, if you throw third-party products into
the mix, there's almost nothing you can't do to manage your Office users.