Outlook: Controlling Custom Message Form Autosignatures

Since I installed Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), users complain that they see duplicate signatures when they use custom message forms. How can I eliminate the duplicates?

Although Microsoft tends to shy away from introducing new features in service packs, Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) does contain a few small enhancements. Form developers have complained for years that items created with custom message forms omit the user's autosignature. Some have learned to live with that limitation; others have written form code to insert the user's signature automatically. SP1 changes the default behavior of Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 so that it inserts the user's autosignature on custom message form items. If you've coded forms to generate user signatures, users will now see two signatures.

Fortunately, SP1 also adds a registry value that suppresses custom form autosignatures, returning Outlook 2003 to its previous behavior. Create a REG_DWORD value named NoAutosigOnCustomForms in the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0OutlookOptions subkey. Set the value to 1 to suppress automatic signatures on custom forms or 0 to allow automatic signatures.

Note that this new signature behavior, along with the support for the No AutosigOnCustomForms value, is also present in Outlook 2002 with Microsoft Office XP SP3 applied. The registry subkey is HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0OutlookOptions.