Group Policy Settings to Suppress Skype Annoyances

Background

For as long as I can remember, one of the general tasks that EUC administrators do is to insulate our clients from those application-specific "annoyances" that can occasionally disrupt productivity or the uniform experience we aim for. You know the ones, for example:

• End User License Agreements
• License key prompts
• Sofware registrations
• Tutorials
• Reminders to upgrade
• Advertisements, etc.

Skype for Business (version 16.0 at the time of this writing) is no exception. The following items should reduce those annoyances.

Annoyances and Mitigations

The following REG file summarizes the desired behaviors

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Disable the Skype For Business Splash Screen at startup
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\Lync]
"DisableSplashScreen"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Lync]
"IsBasicTutorialSeenByUser"=dword:00000001
"FirstRun"=dword:00000001
"UserConsentedTelemetryUpload"=dword:00000000
"DSBkgndMode"=dword:00000001
"TutorialFeatureEnabled"=dword:00000000
"ShowToastWhenAppInvisible"=dword:00000001
"AutoOpenMainWindowWhenStartup"=dword:00000000