How to: Resolve message “Microsoft outlook cannot provide scripting support. The feature is not available”

Microsoft outlook cannot provide scripting support. The feature is not available” when using Microsoft Office in a Terminal Services environment

As the message indicates scripting support is not available in Microsoft Outlook while using it in a terminal server environment. There could be several reasons; in some cases it is just a matter of whatever third party application or setup modifier was provided didn’t include that feature. The second part of this message though is a bit more unique: “The feature is not available”. This generally indicates in my experience that the feature was not included as it could not be installed on your OS. In the case of any machine running terminal services (including Windows Multipoint) you will encounter this problem as for some reason Office does not install scripting support. In order to install it you have a number of options (1 & 2 are for installations by third party components and 3 is for a machine running Terminal Services).

“Microsoft Outlook cannot provide scripting support” refers to the scripting functionality offered through the use of Visual Basic scripts that generally third party components leverage. The solutions provided below are ways to add the Outlook VisualBasic Script library to your existing installation.

Method 1: Copy the Outlvbs.dll file to existing installations

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Copy the Outlvbs.dll file from a computer that is not running Microsoft Outlook on a Terminal Server.
  2. Copy the Outlvbs.dll file to the Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice10 folder of the affected Terminal Server computer.Note If the Terminal Server is running Microsoft Office 2003, copy the Outlvbs.dll file to the Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice11 folder

Method 2: Use the Custom Installation Wizard to deploy Microsoft Office with an additional property to let the VBScript component to be installed

To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Custom Installation Wizard, and then create a new transform (.MST) file for the Microsoft Office installation.
  2. Configure your installation requirement in the Custom Installation Wizard.
  3. On the last available page of the Custom Installation Wizard, click Modify Setup Properties, and then add the following property name and value:Property Name: WTSDISABLED Value: MsInfoFiles,PPTCastCoreFilesNote Both the property name and the value are case sensitive.

Method 3: Use the office installer to deploy Outlook VB script

To enable VB Script support for Outlook forms when running Outlook 2007 on a Terminal Server computer, do the following:

  1. Install Outlook 2007 as a standalone application or as part of a 2007 Office suite.
  2. Determine the globally unique identifier (GUID) for the product that you just installed. If you installed Outlook, use that product GUID. If you installed Office Enterprise2007, use that product GUID. For more information about how to determine the GUID of the product that you installed, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
    928516  Description of the numbering scheme for product code GUIDs in 2007 Office suites and programs
  3. After you have the product GUID, run the following command line:
    msiexec /i <Product Code GUID of [SKUName]WW.msi> ADDLOCAL=OutlookVBScript /qb

    Note In this command, <Product Code GUID of [SKUName]WW.msi> is a placeholder for your product GUID. For example, if you have Office Enterprise 2007 installed, your product GUID would be the following:

    {90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}

    Therefore, the command line should appear as follows:

    msiexec /i {90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE} ADDLOCAL=OutlookVBScript /qb
    For Office 2010 professional plus, the following command line can be executed:
    The GUID entry as mentioned is found under:

Mostly obtained from: Article ID: 302003 – Last Review: July 13, 2009 – Revision: 5.0 Forms with VBScript do not work with Terminal Services in Outlook

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3 Responses

  1. Kevin says:

    On terminal servers if the the GUID follows the users then if i make the change and copy the same GUID to all servers after a user has already got a GUID of some kind from one of the servers previously wont they still have the wrong GUID?

    • JCarlos says:

      Hi!

      I’m not entirely sure I follow what you are saying but the GUID being referenced here is an application GUID. What this means is that if you look through different computers the same GUID is used and it is user agnostic. Now, the GUID is version specific hence you need to check on an existing machine what that GUID is for your version of Office, but you can go to other machines and see that for the same version of Office even with other users on the same machine that GUID is the same. I hope this helps!

  1. January 8, 2012

    […]       1 Minute Ago I found a solution for Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007. You just need to run the installer with a special parameter to force it to install VBscript for outlook. Details can be found here: How to: Resolve message "Microsoft outlook cannot provide scripting support. The feature is not… […]

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