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Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013

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  Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013 "Thor Kottelin" <thor@anta.net> - 2014-03-28 11:19 +0200
    Re: Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013 Mail Man <Mail@Man.com> - 2014-03-28 08:09 -0400
    Re: Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013 VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2014-03-28 19:02 -0500
      Re: Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013 "Thor Kottelin" <thor@anta.net> - 2014-03-29 22:13 +0200
        Re: Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013 VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2014-03-29 19:21 -0500

#621 — Unwanted read receipt requests in Outlook 2013

I'm using Outlook 2013 on a Windows 7 Professional system. When I send 
mail, the recipient is often prompted to allow a read receipt to be 
generated for me, the sender.

I don't want this behaviour to occur. When I go to the settings, the box 
for read receipts is not checked. I have tried checking the box, exiting 
the settings and then unchecking it again, but that hasn't helped.

Does anyone know which registry setting controls whether read receipts are 
requested?

-- 
Thor Kottelin
http://www.anta.net/

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#622

Thor Kottelin wrote:
 
> I'm using Outlook 2013 on a Windows 7 Professional system. When I send
> mail, the recipient is often prompted to allow a read receipt to be
> generated for me, the sender.
> 
> the box for read receipts is not checked.

This is why newer is frequently not better.

I'm still using Office 2000 (and Outlook 2000) on Windows 98se (with
KernelEx).

Microsoft's motto:

     "If it works, it's not complicated enough"

The Windows NT line of Operating Systems:

    "The bloat and vulnerabilities go in before the name goes on"

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#625

Thor Kottelin wrote:

> I'm using Outlook 2013 on a Windows 7 Professional system. When I send 
> mail, the recipient is often prompted to allow a read receipt to be 
> generated for me, the sender.
> 
> I don't want this behaviour to occur. When I go to the settings, the box 
> for read receipts is not checked. I have tried checking the box, exiting 
> the settings and then unchecking it again, but that hasn't helped.
> 
> Does anyone know which registry setting controls whether read receipts are 
> requested?

There is asking for a read receipt (by the sender from the recipient)
and there is answering a read receipt.  You're probably only looking at
setting for the latter.  

Your recipient is getting the read receipt request from you.  So you
need to configure Outlook NOT to ask for read receipts.  See
http://www.howtogeek.com/171023/how-to-request-a-deliveryread-receipt-in-outlook-2013/.
For the recipient not to get a read receipt request from you, disable
the "For all message sent" tracking options.

Is this your computer (at home) or a work computer (i.e., your company's
property on their network)?  That is, is the computer your property and
you pay for the Internet access, or is the computer someone else's
property and connected to their network?  If this is not your computer
but belongs to the company, they can push policies that override
settings in the program.  They can also modify your e-mails as they pass
through their server.  Their property, their rules.  

I've seen them modify outbound e-mails through their server to append or
prepend some nonsense disclaimer that isn't legally enforceable.  I've
never seen them do this with read receipt requests.  In fact, I've seen
companies that will strip out the read receipt request headers so
employees that try to use it won't get it to work.

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#626

"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message 
news:lh52i1$gon$1@news.albasani.net...
> Thor Kottelin wrote:
>> I'm using Outlook 2013 on a Windows 7 Professional system. When I send
>> mail, the recipient is often prompted to allow a read receipt to be
>> generated for me, the sender.
>>
>> I don't want this behaviour to occur. When I go to the settings, the 
>> box
>> for read receipts is not checked. I have tried checking the box, 
>> exiting
>> the settings and then unchecking it again, but that hasn't helped.

> Your recipient is getting the read receipt request from you.  So you
> need to configure Outlook NOT to ask for read receipts.  See
> http://www.howtogeek.com/171023/how-to-request-a-deliveryread-receipt-in-outlook-2013/.
> For the recipient not to get a read receipt request from you, disable
> the "For all message sent" tracking options.
>
> Is this your computer (at home) or a work computer (i.e., your company's
> property on their network)?  That is, is the computer your property and
> you pay for the Internet access, or is the computer someone else's
> property and connected to their network?  If this is not your computer
> but belongs to the company, they can push policies that override
> settings in the program.  They can also modify your e-mails as they pass
> through their server.  Their property, their rules.

Thanks, but there are no policies involved, I'm sending mail through the 
MSA of an ISP, and I have made sure that the box for *requesting* read 
receipts is unchecked (and I have also selected the radio button that 
specifies not to *send* read receipts).

The problem is that the choice I make in the GUI does not affect the 
actual configuration. I was hoping to be able to fix that by identifying 
the relevant registry key and editing it.

-- 
Thor Kottelin
http://www.anta.net/

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#627

Thor Kottelin wrote:

> Thanks, but there are no policies involved, 

How do you know?  Pushing policies is something a company does when
their workstations log onto their domain to open a Windows account.
Policies do not require a domain server to push them.  They can also be
configured by the user (i.e., local policies), set by tweaker tools, or
even malware can change them.  All policies are merely registry entries.
If you log under a Windows account that has local admin privileges then
you or software can modify the registry.  In fact, there are templates
you can download and add for some programs to add policies for them (so
they appear in the policy editor rather than having to delve into the
registry to view or modify them).

Since you have a non-Home edition of Windows then you also have the
local and group policy editors.  Look in there to see if something is
listed.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/cc178992(v=office.15).aspx
(scroll to near the end to find the download link)

Make sure to bit the bitwidth version of Windows that matches what you
have.  The files are text that you can view in Notepad.  I've never had
to define a policy template or disassemble one to know how to read them.
I suspect the policy settings are merely copied under the policy keys in
the registry under a subkey for the product name.  At the top of the
Office 2013 admin template, it has a <displayname> XML tag which is
probably the name of the key created under the Policies keys under the
HKCU and HKLM hives.

Of course, if you have nothing for Office under the Policies keys and
since you say you are not in a domain to get policies pushed onto your
computer then forget about checking policies for the problem's cause.

> I'm sending mail through the MSA of an ISP, and I have made sure that
> the box for *requesting* read receipts is unchecked (and I have also
> selected the radio button that specifies not to *send* read
> receipts). 
> 
> The problem is that the choice I make in the GUI does not affect the
> actual configuration. I was hoping to be able to fix that by
> identifying the relevant registry key and editing it.

I doubt the settings shown in Outlook are not those stored in the
registry.  Changing them in the registry is just a backend method of
changing them in the UI for the program.  You could toggle the options
to their opposite setting, exit Outlook, and toggle them back to make
sure the program "touches" the settings in the registry to make them
match what the config UI shows.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772637(v=WS.10).aspx

That shows what are the registry paths for various versions of Microsoft
Office.  The "2013" year edition is the 15.0 version so use that in the
registry path.  Under the ...\Office\<version>\Outlook\Mail\Options key
are the settings for Outlook.  There is a "Receipt Response" named data
item there.  These are not on (1) and off (0) values but are probably
bitmasked values: different bits in the binary value represent different
settings.  

There is the current user settings stored in the registry.  The policies
are also stored in the registry so check those, too (look at
<hive>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0 where
<hive> is HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).

Good luck finding out what is the bitmask definition for each bit to
determine which setting it affects.  You could exit Outlook, export the
Mail key from the registry to a .reg file, delete the receipt response
data item, and reload Outlook to see what value it gives to this data
item.  Deleting and having Outlook recreate the value means the setting
got reset, so you'll have to go back into the config UI to make sure the
read receipt options are they way you want.

Also try:

Start Outlook in its safe mode.  That eliminates some add-on from
modifying Outlook's behavior or altering the message's headers.  Then
retest in safe mode.

If you are appending a signature, disable it and retest.

Use the webmail UI to your e-mail account to make sure there isn't a
server-side option to request read receipts on your outbound e-mails.  

Try a different e-mail provider to make sure they aren't modifying your
outbound e-mails.  Create a free account at Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo
(who recently added SMTP/POP/IMAP access for free accounts), add a new
account in Outlook, and retest for the unwanted and non-configured read
receipt request problem.

As an afterthought, first send yourself a test e-mail to an account
OTHER than with your current e-mail provider.  That is, send a test
e-mail through your account to a different account with a different
e-mail provider (to ensure all headers are present which won't happen if
an e-mail is internally routed within the same e-mail provider from one
of their accounts to another of their accounts).  Then look at the
headers.  See if there are headers that request a read receipt.  If
there are no such headers then the problem is not on your end.  The
header(s) MUST be present for the recipient's e-mail client to act on or
to ignore them.  The following are the headers which request the
recipient to send a read receipt e-mail:

Disposition-Notification-To (for read receipt)
Return-Receipt-To (for delivery receipt)

/_Read Receipts_/ - Read receipts are handled by the user's e-mail
client.  The e-mail must be delivered into their account AND the user
must view (open) the e-mail.  If the e-mail doesn't make it into their
account, say, due to [pre-]filtering then the user cannot open it to
have their client generate a read receipt e-mail to send back to you
(assuming they have their client configured to always send a read
receipt or to prompt to send one and they agree).  If their e-mail
arrives in their account and only AFTER opening it will the client send
a read receipt (if so configured).

/*_Delivery Receipts_/ - A delivery receipt only requests the receiving
mail server to send a return receipt e-mail saying it got the e-mail.
That does not guarantee the e-mail got to the recipient's mailbox for
them to see it.  Few mail servers honor the delivery receipt request.
It is overhead they don't need to handle.  They already provide a
negative delivery receipt: the absence of error.  If the e-mail is not
rejected then it got delivered, so NOT getting a DSN (delivery status
notification) or an NDR (non-delivery report) from your sending mail
server means they accepted the e-mail.  No error returned by your
sending mail server trying to send to the receiving mail server means
they connected okay to the receiving mail server.  The absence of a send
error and any receive errors means the e-mail got delivered.  Mail
servers have no reason to bother with requests for delivery receipts.
They already provide that info.  Silence is golden.

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