OL2000: (CW) How to Turn Off (Disable) Direct Booking

Both Outlook 2000 and Microsoft Outlook 2002 include a new feature that is named the Direct Booking feature. This feature allows you to schedule resources without sending a meeting request. When you configure the resource for Direct Booking, instead of a meeting request, an appointment is placed directly in the resource's calendar. This allows you to schedule appointments in a resource calendar without being logged on to the resource account's mailbox.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Previous versions of Microsoft Outlook did not include the Direct Booking feature. Instead, a meeting request was always sent to the resource account. In order for that meeting request to be automatically be accepted and placed in the resource calendar, a client computer had to be logged on to the resource account's mailbox. If you want to use the previous method of sending a meeting request to resource accounts, you can turn off the Direct Booking feature. You must turn off the Direct Booking feature on the client computers that schedule the meeting, not on the resource account computer. This setting is a policy based registry setting and can be deployed on a large scale basis if you want to turn off the Direct Booking feature for a group of clients. Follow these steps to add the registry entry to a client computer:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\options\calendar\
4. On the Edit menu, click New, click DWORD Value and then add the following registry value:
   Value name: EnableDirectBooking
   Data type: DWORD
   Value data: 0
5. Log on to the mailbox for the resource account.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

This update does not change the user interface in the Outlook Calendar option. It does, however, change the functionality.

For example, the Automatically accept meeting requests and process cancellations option remains selected. To locate the Automatically accept meeting requests and process cancellations option, click Options on the Tools menu, click Calendar Options, and then click Resource Scheduling.

Administrators can roll this registry entry out to users by using a login script.