Hiding Tabs on the User Properties Dialog Box

We're installing Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Exchange Server 2003 and have noticed that when users double-click an address for someone in our Exchange organization, they see a user Properties dialog box that includes Member Of and Email Addresses tabs. We don't want users to see these tabs. How can we hide them?

Exchange includes template files that govern what users see when they bring up the properties for different Exchange recipients. Users (i.e., mailboxes), contacts (external recipients), groups (distribution lists—DLs), and public folders all have different templates, with a set for each language that Exchange supports. There's no GUI for redesigning the template, so it can be a little clumsy to work with, but you can completely remove the Member Of and E-mail Addresses tabs without too much trouble.

In Exchange System Manager (ESM), navigate to your organization's Recipients container and look under Details Templates. Choose the language whose template you want to modify, then right-click the User template and choose Properties.

On the User Properties dialog box, switch to the Templates tab and scroll to the bottom. Select the control with the value Member Of and all the controls below it, as Web Figure 1 shows, then click Remove. You can click Test to see what the new dialog box will look like, then click OK to save your changes. If you change your mind later, you can restore the original template by clicking the Original button. Repeat the process for the templates for any other languages in use in your organization.

Users who connect to the server online will see the change the next time they start Outlook. For users with Cached Exchange mode, it might take a little longer, because the templates are part of the Offline Address Book (OAB) download. If you have both Outlook 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Exchange 2003 SP2, the template change should appear after Exchange generates the next OAB and the client downloads either the full or differential OAB. For earlier service packs, the new template will be present only in a full download, not a differential download. For more information about details templates, see "Customize Your Exchange Display Templates," April 2004, InstantDoc ID 41637.