Automatically Generate Mail Profiles

Time is money, and IT support staff or end users don't need to waste time manually supplying the username and mailbox server name that Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 needs to open an Exchange mailbox. I've come up with a solution that leverages Outlook features to automate the time-intensive task of creating mail profiles. To use this solution, you need to have the necessary tools and obtain a few pieces of information.

The Necessary Tools
To take advantage of the Outlook features that let you automatically configure mail profiles, you need the Microsoft Office 2003 Resource Kit (ORK), which you can download from the Office Resource Kit Web page (http://office.microsoft.com/ork). In ORK, you'll find the Custom Installation Wizard (CIW). CIW creates a Microsoft transform (.mst) file that Outlook's setup.exe program reads during installation. The .mst file contains information about the modifications you want to make to Outlook's initial setup. The information includes definitions that let you override the default installation settings. For example, by default, Outlook is configured to let users choose whether they want to send a return receipt when one is requested. If you want to change this setting so that sending a return receipt is the default option, you can use CIW to create an .mst file that tells setup.exe to use the new setting as the default option when it installs Outlook. . . .