TABLE OF CONTENTS Especially in large organizations, ensuring that each user s copy of Outlook connects to the correct mail account is a critical deployment issue. No administrator wants to touch every desktop to configure the mail account and the other settings that make up the Outlook mail profile. In Chapter 2, you saw how you can use the Custom Installation Wizard (CIW) to deploy settings along with a new installation of Outlook and use the Custom Maintenance Wizard (CMW) to deploy settings to existing installations. The CIW and CMW also allow you to build a text file with a .prf extension containing mail-profile settings either for separate processing by Outlook or for deployment as part of either the CIW s transform .mst file or the CMW s .cmw file.
In this chapter, you will learn how to build these .prf files and the basics of how they work. Topics include the following:
How to create a .prf file with either the CIW or CMW
The way Outlook processes .prf files
The basic structure of a .prf file
How to import an existing .prf into the CIW or CMW for deployment with an .mst or .cmw file
How to use a .prf file to update an existing profile, as well as to create a new mail profile
The examples in this chapter deal with both Exchange and Internet mail accounts. We will get into the settings for Exchange accounts in more depth in Chapters 4 and 5.
