Display online status on a person name

This policy setting controls where users see presence information for contacts and e-mail recipients when running a compatible instant messaging client program.

If you enable this policy setting, you can choose from three options for allowing presence indicators in Outlook 2007:

- Never - Presence indicators are not displayed anywhere in Outlook.

- Everywhere except To and Cc field - Outlook displays presence indicators in several different places, such as Contacts and the Address Book, but does not display them in the To and CC fields of e-mail messages except when the mouse pointer rests on a person name.

- Everywhere - Presence indicators appear everywhere Outlook is designed to display them, including the To and CC fields of received messages. This option is the default configuration in Outlook 2007.

Note - Enabling this policy setting overrides the "Set maximum level of online status on a person name" policy setting, which allows you to limit the degree to which users are allowed to change the way online status is displayed.

If you disable this policy setting, Outlook does not display presence indicators.

If you do not configure this policy setting, Outlook displays presence information in a number of places, such as the From, To, and CC fields of received messages. In some situations, allowing users to see others' online status and other presence details might compromise their privacy or other sensitive information. This is the equivalent of setting the policy to Enabled -- Everywhere except To and CC field.

Important - Recent testing of this policy setting determined that it did not function as expected.

Supported on: At least Windows Vista

Display online presence:


  1. Never
    Registry HiveHKEY_CURRENT_USER
    Registry PathSoftware\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\IM
    Value NameEnablePresence
    Value TypeREG_DWORD
    Value0
  2. Everywhere except To and CC field
    Registry HiveHKEY_CURRENT_USER
    Registry PathSoftware\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\IM
    Value NameEnablePresence
    Value TypeREG_DWORD
    Value1
  3. Everywhere
    Registry HiveHKEY_CURRENT_USER
    Registry PathSoftware\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\IM
    Value NameEnablePresence
    Value TypeREG_DWORD
    Value2


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