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Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit Home
 Managing and Supporting Office 2000
 Ongoing Configuration of Office on Users' Computers
Managing Users' Options with System Policies
Locking Down an Office Configuration
Using the System Policy Editor
Office 2000 System Policy Reference
Office Registry API
 Helping Users Help Themselves
 Managing Security
 Overview of Tools and Utilities
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Office Registry API

Overview of ORAPI

Office 2000 uses the Office Registry application programming interface (ORAPI) to control interactions between Office applications and the Windows registry. In the past, a missing entry might bring an application to a halt, lowering productivity and wasting time and money while the application was reinstalled. ORAPI eliminates these costly delays. If a value is accidentally deleted from the registry, Office automatically looks up the default value and restores it to the registry; work can go on as usual.

Also, ORAPI reduces clutter in the Windows registry by storing default values in the application. Storing the default values in the application minimizes your hard disk use and speeds up registry access.

When an Office 2000 application needs a value, the following events occur:

  1. The Office application calls ORAPI to read a value.
  2. ORAPI searches for the value in the Windows registry.
  3. If the value exists in the Windows registry, ORAPI returns the value to the application.

    – or –

    If the value is not set in the Windows registry, ORAPI locates the default value and returns the default value to the application.

System Policies Override ORAPI Defaults

System policies always take precedence when the Office Registry API (ORAPI) reads a value from or writes a value to the Windows registry.

When ORAPI reads a value from the Windows registry, it first checks to see whether a system policy has been set for the entry; if a policy has been set, ORAPI returns the policy value. If no policy has been set, ORAPI returns any value from the registry that the user has set for the entry. If the user has not set a value for the entry, ORAPI returns the default value for that entry.

When ORAPI writes a value to the Windows registry, it first checks to see whether a system policy has been set for the entry; if a policy has been set, ORAPI does not write the new value to the registry. If no policy has been set, ORAPI checks to see whether the entry is present in the registry. If the entry is present in the registry, ORAPI writes the new value for that entry to the registry. If the entry is not present in the registry, ORAPI checks to see whether the new value is the same as the default value. If the new value matches the default value, ORAPI does not write the new value to the registry. If the new value does not match the default value, ORAPI writes the new value to the registry.

If the Policies subkey does not exist in the Windows registry, the Policies subkey steps are skipped in the preceding sequences.

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See also

If you customize the Office 2000 installation to allow users’ settings to migrate from a previous version of Office, their customized settings move to the new registry subtree. For more information about customizing the Office 2000 installation, see Office Custom Installation Wizard.

System policies help you control which Office options your users can change. For more information about system policies, see Managing Users' Options with System Policies.
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  Friday, March 5, 1999
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