Controlling Service Installation Options

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You can use optional Microsoft® Windows® registry settings to control which services are installed by default, whether users can add services manually, and whether users automatically connect to arbitrary discovery servers.

If you intend to let users have full control over the research services that they want to install, you do not need to use these optional settings.

Important  Although we talk about registering a research service, the normal registration process registers a research service provider, along with the research service or services that the provider chooses to register on the user's computer. While the provider (through logic in the Registration method) can programmatically select which services to install, the user does not have an equivalent option in the Research task pane user interface to select or exclude individual services at the time of registration. In some cases, the provider may choose to install services, but not to activate them, by setting their Display setting to "Off." The user can activate or deactivate services at any time, from the Research Options dialog box.

How to control the installation of default services

Research services are made available through a provider, which can host multiple services. Microsoft Office 2003 applications connect to a provider through its URL and receive a list of available services from the provider. By default, all Office 2003 installations are configured to check Microsoft's provider for new Microsoft services and for third-party services that Microsoft lists, and to install specific services by default. Organizations can also create their own providers, exposing whichever services they want.

The normal registration process registers research services for the current user only, under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Sources registry subkey. To specify which services are installed by default, you can create a set of subkeys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE that define those services. By default, no subkeys exist at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Sources. Creating a list of provider and service subkeys in this location causes Office to modify its normal procedure for the initial installation of services. Before contacting Microsoft's discovery servers and any registered discovery servers, and installing default services from those sources, Office finds these subkeys located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and copies them to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Copying the subkeys results in the services that you specified being installed for the user. This process is called "propagation."

Note  The values of the NoAdd, NoDiscovery, and DiscoveryNeedOptIn registry entries do not prevent propagation. For more information about these entries, see Administrative Option Settings.

The subkeys and entries created by the administrator under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE should have the same names and format as those normally installed under HKEY_CURRENT_USER. For more information, see Registry Settings Overview.

How to control the manual installation of services

You can create the optional NoAdd entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Options to control the manual installation of services by users. This entry is a DWORD value that behaves as a Boolean. When this entry has a value of 0 (false), users can add services. When it has a value of 1 (true), the NoAdd entry blocks all methods of adding services except:

  • Propagation from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, as described earlier.
  • Manual addition of service settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER by using the Registry Editor.

Note  The Options subkey under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research does not exist by default.

For more information, see Administrative Option Settings.

How to control the use of a discovery server

You can create the optional Discovery entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research to specify up to five arbitrary discovery servers that Office queries for available services. The values used to specify the discovery servers have the following format:

  • DiscoveryPath1 = http://server1/service.asmx
  • DiscoveryPath2 = http://server2/service.asmx
  • ...

You can also create the optional NoDiscovery entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research\Options to control whether Office applications contact discovery servers for available services. When this entry has a value of 0 (false), Office 2003 contacts discovery servers (as discussed in Deploying Services to Office Users; when it has a value of 1 (true), the NoDiscovery setting prevents Office 2003 applications from contacting either Microsoft's discovery servers or any arbitrary discovery server.

Note  The Options subkey under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Research does not exist by default.

For more information, see Configuring Service Discovery and Administrative Option Settings.