A recipient's photo, details, or presence doesn't appear in Outlook contact card

Original KB number:   4467874

Symptoms

You experience one or more of the following symptoms in Microsoft Outlook:

• An Outlook contact card doesn't display a recipient's photo, details, or presence.
• When you try to search for a recipient by using the Search People box, the search results display the user name without the presence information. Additionally, when you select to open the user's contact card, only minimal details are displayed.
• No presence is displayed for a recipient who's listed in the TO field. When you open that recipient's contact card, no photo or details are displayed.

Cause

This issue occurs if the following policy registry key is applied in your organization:

Subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\SocialConnector
DWORD: DownloadDetailsFromAD
Value: 0

Resolution

Before you troubleshoot this issue, you must differentiate between the following kinds of recipients:

• A corporate recipient that exists in your GAL and includes information
• A recipient that consists of only an SMTP address

Presence information and contact card details will not be displayed for a recipient that has only an SMTP address.

To resolve this issue for a recipient that exists in the GAL and includes information, remove the registry key that's mentioned in the "Cause" section. Additionally, the DownloadDetailsFromAD setting is typically set by a Group Policy Object (GPO). Therefore, you can also use Group Policy Object Editor to manage the setting.

1. Start Group Policy Object Editor or Group Policy Management Console.
2. Under User Configuration, expand Administrative Templates > Microsoft Outlook 2016, and then select the Outlook Social Connector node.
3. Double-click the Do not download photos from Active Directory setting, select Disabled or Not Configured, and then select OK.

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