How to change the publishing settings for free and busy information on Outlook client computers by using Group Policy

This step-by-step article describes how to publish free and busy information globally by using a server-side setting. By default, Microsoft Outlook lets you publish two months of free and busy information per user. The default setting is typically set from the Outlook client computer. You can change the default setting to more than two months. You can also apply the setting to all the users in the domain by using Group Policy for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Microsoft Outlook 2002. You cannot set the default setting by using Exchange System Manager in Microsoft Exchange.

Before you can publish free and busy information globally by using a server-side setting, you must install the policy template files for Microsoft Office 2003 and for Microsoft Office XP. To install the policy template files for Office 2003, visit the following Microsoft Web site: To install the System Policy Editor and the policy template files for Office XP, visit the following Microsoft Web site:When you use the Group Policy feature in the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in to set policy, you must first load the Office policy template files (.adm files). You can then configure the settings that you want to manage.

To change the default setting for free and busy information in the domain, follow these steps.

Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Right-click domain name, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Group Policy tab.
4. In the Current Group Policy Object Links for domain name list, select Default Domain Policy.
   
   Note The Default Domain Policy Group Policy object is used here as an example. A new policy can also be created to apply the settings for all the users in the domain.
5. Click Edit, and then expand User Configuration in the left pane.
6. Right-click Administrative Templates, and then click Add/Remove Templates.
7. Click Add, and then double-click Local Disk (C:) in the Look in list.
8. Double-click WINDOWS, and then double-click inf.
9. Click Outlk11.adm, click Open, and then click Close.
10. Expand Administrative Templates, and then expand Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.
11. Expand Tools | Options, and then expand Preferences.
12. Expand Calendar options, and then click Free/Busy Options.
13. In the right pane, double-click Options.
14. In the Options Properties dialog box, click Enabled.
15. In the Months of Free/Busy information published list, select the value.
    
    Note If you do not want to change the default value for the Months of Free/Busy information published list, select the Prevent users from changing Months of Free/Busy information being published check box.
16. Click Apply, and then click OK.
17. Update the Group Policy settings. To update the Group Policy settings in Microsoft Windows Server 2003, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, type gpupdate /target:user /force, and then press ENTER.
    3. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER.
    To update the Group Policy settings in Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, type secedit /refresh user_policy /enforce, and then press ENTER.
    3. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER.

For additional information about how to reset user rights in the default domain Group Policy, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: :