How do I roam the New Outlook for Windows settings with ProfileUnity Portability

How do I roam the new Outlook for Windows settings with ProfileUnity Portability?

The built-in Office portability ruleset roams classic Outlook settings. The new Outlook for Windows (olk.exe) keeps its user data in a different location, under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Olk, which the Office ruleset does not capture. This article provides a New Outlook portability ruleset that works alongside the Office ruleset, and two ways to put it in place.

The New Outlook Ruleset

The ruleset is named New Outlook and contains two filesystem rules. Both use the Local Application Data folder (Folder ID 12, %LOCALAPPDATA%) and the Replace operation. It has no registry rules.

The ruleset does not capture the rest of the Olk folder. Logs, caches and the EBWebView browser data are rebuilt by Outlook and are left out to keep the portability archive small.

Option A: Add a Separate New Outlook Rule (Recommended)

This option leaves the built-in Office ruleset unchanged, so it is not affected when the Office ruleset is updated in a later ProfileUnity release.

1. Import or create the ruleset

To import the attached file:

1. In the ProfileUnity Management Console, go to Portability Management > Portability Rulesets.
2. Click Import and select Portability-New_Outlook.json.
3. Confirm that a ruleset named New Outlook appears in the list.

To create it by hand instead:

1. In Portability Management > Portability Rulesets, click Create and name the ruleset New Outlook.
2. Add two Filesystem Rules with Operation set to Replace and Folder set to Local Application Data, using the two paths in the ruleset table.
3. Click Save.

2. Add the ruleset to the configuration's Portability Settings

1. Go to Configuration Management, edit the configuration, and open Portability Settings.
2. Note the settings on the existing Office entry: operating system, operation and storage path.
3. Click Add Portability Setting and select the New Outlook ruleset.
4. Match the Office entry: the same operating systems, Restore and Save, and the same storage path.
5. Place the new entry directly after the Office entry in the sequence.
6. Save the configuration and click Update Configuration to deploy it.

Example of the two entries side by side:

Option B: Copy the Office Ruleset and Extend It

This option keeps a single Portability Settings entry for Office and New Outlook. The trade-off is that the copy does not pick up changes Liquidware makes to the built-in Office ruleset in later releases.

1. In Portability Management > Portability Rulesets, copy the Office ruleset your configuration uses (for example, Office - 6.8.4 R2).
2. Rename the copy so it is clearly custom, for example Office - 6.8.4 R2 + New Outlook.
3. Add the two Replace / Local Application Data filesystem rules from the ruleset table and click Save.
4. In Configuration Management > [configuration] > Portability Settings, edit the existing Office entry and change its ruleset to the new copy. Leave the operating system, operation and path as they are.
5. Save the configuration and click Update Configuration.

Verify

1. Log on as a test user, open the new Outlook, add an account, and change a setting.
2. Log off. Confirm the portability archive for the New Outlook entry (Option A) or the updated Office entry (Option B) is written to the user's portability path.
3. Log on to a different, non-persistent desktop. Open the new Outlook and confirm the account and setting are present.