tedpenner
asked on
Common Signature
I read and send mail through my companies Exchange Server usually using Outlook but on a Laptop and other desktop machines, as well as via the web portal they have set up. I want a default signature file that I can use from anywhere?
The Outlook signatures are saved in the folder
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Applicat ion Data\Microsoft\Signatures
Each signature consists of three files, like
Ted.htm
Ted.rtf
Ted.txt
For use with HTML, Rich Format and Text e-mails, respectively.
If you copy those signatures to USB portable storage device, you can copy them to new computers as you use them and the signatures will be available in Outlook. I suggest that you use the folder (assuming your login name is Ted)
X:\Documents and Settings\Ted\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures
on the USB storage device, this way you can just copy X:\Documents and Settings to the C:\ drive, and the signatures will end up in the right folder.
You may have to edit signatures once after copying the signatures, to make one of them the default. If you want to automate that, to, you can expoort the key
HKEY-CURRENT_USER\Software \Microsoft \Office\10 .0\Common\ MailSettin gs
10.0 is for Outlook 2002 - you will have to change it to 11.0 or 9.0, depending on the version you are using.
Export the file as a .reg file, like Default Signatures.reg.
Edit the file and delete all the entries except NewSignature (the default signature to use on new emails) and ReplySignature (the default signatures to use on replies). The file will look something like this (54 65 64 means "Ted")
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Softwar e\Microsof t\Office\1 0.0\Common \MailSetti ngs]
"NewSignature"=hex(2):54,0 0,65,00,64 ,00,00,00
"ReplySignature"=hex(2):54 ,00,65,00, 64,00,00,0 0
Note that if your signature names are more than 8 letters, then the registry entry will span multiple lines. All of the multiple lines except the last will end in a \, which indicates a continuation. You should copy all the lines of both entries.
Now, when you get to a new machine, after you copy the signature files you can double click on the Default Signatures.reg file, and this will update the default signature to use. Of course, the default signature should be one of the files that you copied!
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Applicat
Each signature consists of three files, like
Ted.htm
Ted.rtf
Ted.txt
For use with HTML, Rich Format and Text e-mails, respectively.
If you copy those signatures to USB portable storage device, you can copy them to new computers as you use them and the signatures will be available in Outlook. I suggest that you use the folder (assuming your login name is Ted)
X:\Documents and Settings\Ted\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures
on the USB storage device, this way you can just copy X:\Documents and Settings to the C:\ drive, and the signatures will end up in the right folder.
You may have to edit signatures once after copying the signatures, to make one of them the default. If you want to automate that, to, you can expoort the key
HKEY-CURRENT_USER\Software
10.0 is for Outlook 2002 - you will have to change it to 11.0 or 9.0, depending on the version you are using.
Export the file as a .reg file, like Default Signatures.reg.
Edit the file and delete all the entries except NewSignature (the default signature to use on new emails) and ReplySignature (the default signatures to use on replies). The file will look something like this (54 65 64 means "Ted")
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Softwar
"NewSignature"=hex(2):54,0
"ReplySignature"=hex(2):54
Note that if your signature names are more than 8 letters, then the registry entry will span multiple lines. All of the multiple lines except the last will end in a \, which indicates a continuation. You should copy all the lines of both entries.
Now, when you get to a new machine, after you copy the signature files you can double click on the Default Signatures.reg file, and this will update the default signature to use. Of course, the default signature should be one of the files that you copied!
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The thread that upul007 references has an entry regarding the values in the registry that specify which signatures to use on new mail and replies is in:
"Writing to the registry isn't a problem, but calculating the key to write to for a given Outlook profile may be. The signatures are stored in this registry key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\W indows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook \<Some Value>\00000002' as two values: New Signature and Reply-Forward Signature."
First I would like to point out that "Outlook" is the profile name. The default profile name is Outlook, but a user can specify one or more profiles with different names, so you would also have to determine the profile name to find the right key.
However, when I looked in my own registry for these values, I could not find them. There were many values in this area relating to my .pst files and POP settings, but I could not find anything relating to the signatures. However, I remember that Outlook has the means to associate a signature with a particular POP server, and since the above-mentioned key is in the area of the registry where POP server information is stored, this could be why that Expert found his signature keys there. It may also be that the location of the keys are dependent on the version of Outlook, and even possibly if you are using an Exchange Server or not. I am using Outlook 2002 and am not using an Exchange Server.
To discover the registry entries that are affected by the choice of signature, I suggest using the program INCTRL5 from PC Magazine. It compares a before and after snapshot of your files and registry, and lets you discover what is changed in your file system and the registry (and INI files, if you specify them) when you make changes in an application. You would take a "before" snapshot, change the values for the default signature, then take an "after" snapshot and discover what was changed.
"Writing to the registry isn't a problem, but calculating the key to write to for a given Outlook profile may be. The signatures are stored in this registry key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\W
First I would like to point out that "Outlook" is the profile name. The default profile name is Outlook, but a user can specify one or more profiles with different names, so you would also have to determine the profile name to find the right key.
However, when I looked in my own registry for these values, I could not find them. There were many values in this area relating to my .pst files and POP settings, but I could not find anything relating to the signatures. However, I remember that Outlook has the means to associate a signature with a particular POP server, and since the above-mentioned key is in the area of the registry where POP server information is stored, this could be why that Expert found his signature keys there. It may also be that the location of the keys are dependent on the version of Outlook, and even possibly if you are using an Exchange Server or not. I am using Outlook 2002 and am not using an Exchange Server.
To discover the registry entries that are affected by the choice of signature, I suggest using the program INCTRL5 from PC Magazine. It compares a before and after snapshot of your files and registry, and lets you discover what is changed in your file system and the registry (and INI files, if you specify them) when you make changes in an application. You would take a "before" snapshot, change the values for the default signature, then take an "after" snapshot and discover what was changed.
Moderator:
This fellow E-E_Sucks has posted a similar "off topic" message in over 100 questions. Can they all be removed and his account closed?
Thanks
This fellow E-E_Sucks has posted a similar "off topic" message in over 100 questions. Can they all be removed and his account closed?
Thanks
I hope this helps.
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=421
David