OLK Outlook Temp Folder

The Outlook 2003 design team came up with some strange ideas of how to cache attachments. From Microsoft :

When you open file attachments that are considered safe, Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 puts these attachments in a subdirectory under the Temporary Internet Files directory as an additional precaution. When Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 first tries to use a temporary file, it examines the registry to determine whether the following value exists, depending on your version of Outlook.

Outlook 2003
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security

Value Name: OutlookSecureTempFolder
Data Type: REG_SZ
Outlook 2007
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security

Value Name: OutlookSecureTempFolder
Data Type: REG_SZ
If the value exists, and if the value contains a valid path, Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 uses that location for its temporary files.

If the registry value does not exist, or if it points to an invalid location, Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 creates a new subdirectory under the Temporary Internet Files directory and puts the temporary file in the new subdirectory. The name of the new subdirectory is unknown, is randomly generated, and takes on the following form, depending on your version of Outlook.

Outlook 2003
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLKxxx
In this example, username is the user name that is used by the person who is currently logged on to the computer, and xxx is a randomly generated sequence of letters and numbers.

If you open an attachment, change the file, and try to "Save As..." you will notice the default folder is this OLKxxx folder. The OLK folder is hidden and you cannot use Explorer to browse to it without typing the address in the Path bar.

There are several downsides to this approach.

Users can save important changes to a hidden folder, cannot find them via Explorer, then wail about disappearing files and version confusion.

Locked files won't be deleted by Outlook upon close and will accumulate in the OLK folder creating a treasure trove of semi-secret documents hidden on your local hard drive.

The foldername is semi-random, so it is difficult to script changes to the directory in a company.

I wrote a vbs script to fix these problems that should be deployable as a logoff or logon script. It does not require admin rights and should work with limited users in XP. It does the following:

Find out what the current OLK directory is from the registry

Add Modify permissions to the directory via CACLS.exe, so accumulated attachments can be deleted

Reassign the OLK directory to a fixed path, create the new directory if it doesn't already exist

Remove Modify permissions from the new OutlookTempFolder directory.

Users will now get a "Read Only" error when trying to save changes to the OutlookTempFolder. The script leaves users with Read and Write privileges to allow Outlook to write the initial attachment to the directory. Clicking "Save" on a modified document generates a "Read-Only File" warning in Outlook 2003. If the user persists in trying to save to the directory, "Saving As..." results in a 0-byte file and error, since Outlook is creating the file, then Modifying it to add the data from the original file. Either way it is more difficult to do the wrong thing, rather than change directory to a valid save location.

Here is the script. May it save many gnashed teeth.

' Outlook 2003 Temp Folder Fix Script
' (c) Dave S. Nov 2008
' I assume no liability for use of this script.
' http://snippetsandsnails.blogspot.com/
' Please verify that it does what you want in a test environment first!
' Freely redistributable with this attribution notice
const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
strComputer = "."
Set StdOut = WScript.StdOut
myDomain = "WIDGETCO\"

'' Get OLK directory from registry as user 
Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" &_ 
strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv") 
strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security"
strValueName = "OutlookSecureTempFolder"
oReg.GetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue
OLKdir = "nonexistentdirectory"
OLKdir = strValue

' Set up the new location for OLK to reside
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
newOLK = WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%HOMEDRIVE%") &  WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%HOMEPATH%") & "\" & "OutlookTempFiles"
' Get current username
userName = myDomain & WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%USERNAME%")

'' We have the OLK directory, now empty it 

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(OLKdir)
' Set colSubfolders = objFolder.Subfolders

If objFSO.FolderExists(OLKdir) Then
'    Wscript.Echo "OLK Folder " & OLKdir  & " exists."
    Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
' Grant change rights to allow deletion of files    
    iRetVal = objShell.Run("%SystemRoot%\System32\Cacls.exe " & Chr(34) & newOLK & _
        Chr(34) & " /E /T /G " & userName & ":C", 0, True) 
    Set objShell = Nothing    
    Set files = objFolder.Files
    On Error Resume Next
    For each file In files
        OLKFile = OLKdir & "\" & file.Name
' Do not delete subdirs, only delete files that are not locked etc.
        If objFSO.FileExists(OLKFile) Then
            objFSO.DeleteFile OLKFile, True
        End If
        If Err.Number Then
'            Wscript.Echo "Failed deletion:" & OLKFile
            Err.Clear
        End If
    Next
Else
    Wscript.Echo "OLK Folder " & OLKdir & " does not exist, registry is in error."
End If

' Set up new OLK location

If objFSO.FolderExists(newOLK) Then
' Reset permissions on already existing folder    
    Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
' Note /P replaces the user perms, /G additively adds perms    
   iRetVal = objShell.Run("%SystemRoot%\System32\Cacls.exe " & Chr(34) & newOLK & _
        Chr(34) & " /E /T /P " & userName & ":W", 0, True)
    iRetVal = objShell.Run("%SystemRoot%\System32\Cacls.exe " & Chr(34) & newOLK & _
        Chr(34) & " /E /T /G " & userName & ":R", 0, True) 
    Set objShell = Nothing
Else
' Create the folder and reset the registry
    WScript.Echo "Creating new Outlook Temp Directory: " & newOLK
    objFSO.CreateFolder(newOLK)
    strValue = newOLK
' Directory is created.  Now grant Read and Write but not Modify to prevent OLK saving
    Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
    iRetVal = objShell.Run("%SystemRoot%\System32\Cacls.exe " & Chr(34) & newOLK & _
        Chr(34) & " /E /T /P " & userName & ":W", 0, True)
    iRetVal = objShell.Run("%SystemRoot%\System32\Cacls.exe " & Chr(34) & newOLK & _
        Chr(34) & " /E /T /G " & userName & ":R", 0, True)  
    Set objShell = Nothing        
    oReg.SetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,newOLK
    If Err = 0 Then
        oReg.GetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,finalValue
 '       WScript.Echo _
 '      "Can't set new directory - outlook folder location value is: " & finalValue
    Else 
 '       WScript.Echo "Error in creating key" & _
 '      " and String value = " & Err.Number
    End If
End If