Originally the option to in Outlook to 'End appointments and meetings early' was a simple on/off option and was reflected in the registry with a DWORD 'endeventsearly' in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar Now a recent update now allows users to select 'End early' or 'Start Late' and the DWORD has been replaced with String Value ShortenEvents that can have the value 'End_Early', 'Start_Late', or 'None'. However the Office Cloud Policy Service still only shows the previous settings which applies only the DWORD which now has no effect. Can you please update the Office Policy Service to reflect the new setting in Outlook so we can push this out to our users? Thanks!

Just adding my voice to this - as stated, changing the GUI in Outlook changes the registry keys as expected (and using RegistryChangesView supports this \ doesn't show anything else), but changing the keys (manually or via GPO) doesn't update Outlook. This also means we are restricted to the default time lengths in Outlook \ Options \ Calendar, and we wish to use bespoke durations.

Joe Savage Well I want you to know you are my hero for the next week at least. We had just rolled this out company wide and made a big announcement about it, only to have it break a few weeks later. I spent hours with Microsoft support to no avail and you just solved it for me. Thank you for explaining the method behind your troubleshooting! This is the first time I have bothered to post, but this was too helpful to not say thank you.

Matt_TheTrust Looks like it was a fairly recent change added to the "Current Channel" release track on Jan 26th. Version 2101 (Build 13628.20274)https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2101-january-26 If you can prevent your staff from receiving this update, then you should be able to keep using the old values / GPO settings. If not, then you may need use your GPO to push the reg values more manually. Of course in my case, GPO isn't much help cause no one is coming to the office and connecting to the DCs right now which is why I was hoping to push this out via the Office Cloud Policy Service, but it still hasn't been updated and doesn't have any way of pushing just regedits like GPO

Joe SavageI can't thank you enough for posting this. I have been so frustrated trying to resolve this after the update broke our GPO. If you don't mind sharing, how did you come to this conclusion. As in how did you find out a string value "ShortenEvents" needed to be added to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\outlook\options\calendar with the values you supplied? I tried changing it manually in Outlook and comparing the registry before and after, but didn't find this. Either way thank you!

There are two section in the registry that control Outlook settings:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\The first corelates to settings that are manually configured by the user, change the registry here and you'll see it updated in Outlook (after you close and re-open), but the user will be able to switch it backThe second corelates to settings that are configured via GPO, change the registry here and it'll update AND grey out the option in Outlook so it can't be changed,So you had the right idea, you just weren't looking in quite the right place. 😄 Glad I could help! Now if MS would just update their management tools...

'End appointments and meetings early' feature now broken in Office Cloud Policy Service

61 Replies

Matt_TheTrust
Copper Contributor
Mar 03, 2021
HI Joe,

Do you know which update has caused this? We are trying to use GPO to push this registry change out to our users and are experiencing some issues, just wondering if we should be using these new values

Best
Matt
- Joe Savage
  Brass Contributor
  Mar 03, 2021
  Matt_TheTrust Looks like it was a fairly recent change added to the "Current Channel" release track on Jan 26th.
  
  Version 2101 (Build 13628.20274)
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/current-channel#version-2101-january-26
  
  If you can prevent your staff from receiving this update, then you should be able to keep using the old values / GPO settings. If not, then you may need use your GPO to push the reg values more manually. Of course in my case, GPO isn't much help cause no one is coming to the office and connecting to the DCs right now which is why I was hoping to push this out via the Office Cloud Policy Service, but it still hasn't been updated and doesn't have any way of pushing just regedits like GPO
  - papacat
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 18, 2021
    Joe SavageI can't thank you enough for posting this. I have been so frustrated trying to resolve this after the update broke our GPO. If you don't mind sharing, how did you come to this conclusion. As in how did you find out a string value "ShortenEvents" needed to be added to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\outlook\options\calendar with the values you supplied?
    
    I tried changing it manually in Outlook and comparing the registry before and after, but didn't find this.
    
    Either way thank you!

Forum Discussion

'End appointments and meetings early' feature now broken in Office Cloud Policy Service

61 Replies

Resources