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Thursday 21 April 2011

Disable MS Word 2007 Proofing Tools via Group Policy

Yes it is possible!

Why would I want to do this? Well, for exams, of course. In order to have multi-use PCs that are used for teaching to have the possiblity of use for qualified exams, the PCs need to have it's proofing tools tied down.

The other things like internet access and access to network locations is easy enough, but how do you lock down Proofing in Word 2007? Well, you have probably at first glance seen the Group Policy Objects for Word 2007. You can find them in User Settings/Administrative Templates/Microsoft Office Word 2007/Word Options/Proofing. But, as anyone who has ever tried these settings knows, when you open Word 2007, the settings are easily switched back on or bybassed by using the items in the proofing toolbar or by going into the options.

Ah - but what if you could disable the specific user interface items? Well you can - that's easy: Under Microsoft Office Word 2007/Disable Items in User Interface/Custom you can do this. Microsoft has a whole page devoted to this subject. You can find that here.

So what IDs do you disable. Well here is my list:
2566
15780
9056
6111
12842
14453
2815
3492
3492
4025
3997
3958
790
2
3217
2349
329
3219
2469
2788
11323
7343
7387

The important one, the one that is not in the documentation, is 11323. including this ID disables the "Options" button in the Office Button (that un-named circle that someone sensible renamed 'File' in Office 2010.) Without the "options" button disabled, those pesky office group policies can be over-ridden by the user. Without access to options, the user must accept a proofless Word.

But that is not quite enough. It is still possible to gain access to Options by using the "Alt-T, O" legacy key press. But once again, there is an answer. In the same folder as 'Disable commands,' is 'Disable shortcut keys.'

Once again here is my list:
118
254
79,12
118,16
118,4

The 254 entry is equivalent to the key and option combination 84,16. It's not that clearly explained, the key is the standard ascii character that is being used in the combination. 84 is t. The number following the comma is the option. Alt is 16, Ctrl is 8 and Shift is 4. Any combination adds up; so Ctrl-Shift is 12 (8 + 4).

So these options will now disable:
  • 118 - F7 Do a spell check
  • 79,12 - Ctrl-Shift-o - Opens the research bar
  • 254 (or 84,16) - Alt-T Legacy Tools Menu

So now we have used the standard group policies to disable proofing on Word 2007. The User interface buttons are disabled and the options menu is also unreachable so that the disabled options can no longer be turned back on.

The only thing left to do is to make sure the Group Policy Object is targeted only at your Exam login, or your teachers are going to get very angry with you.

8 comments:

  1. Many thanks for posting this - was _exactly_ what I was looking for.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good work, but I still seem to be able to get back to Word Options via Print, Options or Save As, Tools. I need Print and Save As, just not those extra buttons!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Office 2010 no longer has the Group Policy option to turn off the Spell Checker. However it this can still be achieved by writing a DWORD value to the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0\Office
    Value name "WordSpellingOptions" Value=0 No Spell Checking. Value=5 Spell Checking Enabled.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Anthony,

      Setting the registry options does work, however it disables it for all the users who login to that computer.
      Would there be a way to only target a single user?

      Thank you

      Delete
    2. THANKS ALOT!!!!

      Delete
  4. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is going to save a LOT of headaches in the future!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Have you had any issues with blocking the function keys? I'm trying to do what you mention above and when I try to block F1 (help), and get it to work using 112,0, but that also blocks lower case "p" (which has the same ASCII code). I see you're just using the number without the comma, etc., but when I try that it doesn't work (this is Word 2003). Any thoughts?

    Thanks, Ed

    ReplyDelete
  6. http://chronicbit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/disabling-proofing-tools-and-related.html Updated version for 2010

    ReplyDelete