When you change a junk e-mail setting in the Outlook 2007 user interface, the junk e-mail setting reverts to the configuration that is set in the registry after you restart Outlook

Consider the following scenario. You set the junk e-mail protection level in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 by setting the following two registry entires under the registry subkey:

• Registry entry: JunkMailProtection DWORD value:Protection Level
• Registry entry: JunkMailImportLists DWORD value: 1

Then, you start Outlook and you manually change the junk e-mail protection level to a setting that differs from the setting that is specified in the registry. After this, you exit and restart Outlook. However, when you examine the junk e-mail setting, you find that the junk e-mail setting has unexpectedly reverted to the configuration that is set in the registry.

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Outlook 2007 post-Service Pack 1 Hotfix Package that was released on January 28, 2008. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Before you install the hotfix, Outlook handles junk e-mail settings according to the following process:

1. You configure a non-policy junk e-mail setting in the registry. For example, you use the following registry entry under the
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
   key to configure the junk e-mail protection level to High.
   Registry entry: JunkMailProtection DWORD value: 3
2. You configure the following non-policy registry entry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Mail key. This is required to trigger the configuration of the junk e-mail setting that step 1 specifies.
   Registry entry: JunkMailImportLists DWORD value: 1
3. You start Outlook. The setting from step 1 is applied.
4. You examine the registry data from step 2. You notice that the value of the JunkMailImportLists key is still 1.
5. You manually change the junk e-mail protection level in the Outlook user interface in the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
6. You restart Outlook.
7. You examine the registry settings from step 1 and from step 2. You notice that these settings are not changed.

Because the registry data is unchanged in this scenario, the junk e-mail configuration that is specified in the registry is reapplied on the next start of Outlook. This continues until you change the value of the JunkMailImportLists value to 0.

After you install the hotfix, Outlook handles junk e-mail configuration settings according to the following process:

1. You configure a non-policy junk e-mail setting in the registry. For example, you use the following registry entry under the
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
   key to configure the junk e-mail protection level to High.
   Registry entry: JunkMailProtection DWORD value: 3
2. You configure the following non-policy registry entry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Mail key. This is required to trigger the configuration of the junk e-mail setting that step 1 specifies.
   Registry entry: JunkMailImportLists DWORD value: 1
3. You start Outlook. The setting from step 1 is applied.
4. You examine the registry data from step 2 and notice the value of JunkMailImportLists is now 0.
5. You manually change the junk e-mail protection level in the Outlook user interface in the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
6. You restart Outlook.
7. You examine the registry data from step 1 and from step 2. You notice that the value of the JunkMailProtection key is set to the value that you specified in step 5. The value of the JunkMailImportLists key has been changed to 0 as expected.

After you install the hotfix, the registry value for the JunkMailImportLists key is changed to 0 in this scenario. Therefore, the junk e-mail configuration that is specified in the registry is not reapplied on the next start of Outlook.

The change that is provided by the hotfix enables you to deploy a default, non-policy, junk e-mail configuration for all users. The change also enables users to manually override the default junk e-mail settings.

If you do not want users to manually override the default junk e-mail configuration, use Group Policy to deploy these settings. If you use Group Policy, users cannot change the administratively configured settings.
For more information about software update terminology, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: