Policy
S/MIME interoperability with external clients:
Microsoft Office
Policy overview
Key metadata and intent for this policy.
This policy setting controls whether Outlook decodes encrypted messages itself or passes them to an external program for processing. If you enable this policy setting, you can choose from three options for configuring external S/MIME clients: - Handle internally. Outlook decrypts all S/MIME messages itself. - Handle externally. Outlook hands all S/MIME messages off to the configured external program. - Handle if possible. Outlook attempts to decrypt all S/MIME messages itself. If it cannot decrypt a message, Outlook hands the message off to the configured external program. This option is the default configuration. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the behavior is the equivalent of selecting Enabled – Handle if possible.
Registry values
How enabled and disabled states update the registry.
No explicit registry values are set for enabled or disabled states.
Policy elements
Inputs and configuration options exposed by this policy.
| Scope | Element | Type | Registry mapping | Constraints & behavior | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| User | Behavior for handling S/MIME messages: ID L_BehaviorforhandlingSMIMEmessages | enum | Path software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\security Value name externalsmime Type REG_DWORD | Options: Handle internally (0), Handle externally (1), Handle if possible (2) |