Frequently Asked Questions
(and their answers)

If you also have questions or suggestions that you feel should be included here, please contact us at mask@lucatec.de .

Exchange configuration issues

Many issues are not really specific to Lucatec® Mask but instead are often caused by confusion about how to configure the delegatable objects on the Exchange Server.

How can I prevent messages arriving with "on behalf of [User]" appended to the intended sender name?

In order to avoid the suffix you have to grant the respective user the "Send As" permission on the relevant object. This is different from assigning "Send on behalf" rights which is what happens when you declare a user to be the delegate of an account via the Outlook UI (you can also do this via the Delivery Options button on the Exchange General tab of the corresponding AD object's Properties window).

The steps necessary for assigning "Send As" permissions differ slightly depending on whether you want to send on behalf of a shared mailbox account or a mail-enabled Public Folder:

Shared Mailbox account (also works for other AD objects like Security Groups and Distribution Lists):
In order to get at the relevant options you will first have to enable the Advanced Features option (available via the View menu) in the AD Users and Computers MMC. Now bring up the relevant account's Properties window and switch to the Security tab. Here you can add the relevant users or groups and grant them the "Send As" privilege.
Mail-enabled Public Folders:
Using the Exchange System Manager, bring up the Properties for the public folder and activate the Permissions tab. You can now grant the "Send as" privilege via the Directory Rights button.

Note that in both cases you will often have to restart the Exchange Information Store service for the changes to become effective.

There is no harm in assigning both "Send on behalf" and "Send As" permissions on an object but the "Send As" will take precedence, i.e. when both are set no suffix will be shown.

Installation issues

This section describes issues or questions that occur before or during the installation of Lucatec® Mask.

How can I perform a (mass-)installation without user interaction (aka "unattended setup")?

In order to easily install Lucatec® Mask on multiple machines with identical settings you could perform the following steps:

  1. Install Lucatec® Mask manually on the first machine, using a commandline like: 

    LucatecMask-4.0.1-setup.exe /saveinf="myconfig.ini"
    where you should replace myconfig.ini with a fully qualified file name of your own liking (even on a network path). All settings and customizations you enter or select during this installation will be saved into the specified config file.

    Make sure to enter your registration details when you perform this installation. For example, if you received licensing information in the following form: 

    MyCompany, Ltd.
123456-ABCDEF-789012-GHIJKL-345678-MNOPQR-901234-STUVWX
    then MyCompany, Ltd. should go into the field labelled "Organization" and the key should be entered into the "Serial" field.

  2. On the other machines launch the installation using the following commandline: 

    LucatecMask-4.0.1-setup.exe /silent /loadinf="myconfig.ini"
    where myconfig.ini is again the fully-qualified path to the configuration file that was produced by the first installation in step 1.

    This will install Lucatec® Mask with exactly the same settings and licensing information as on the first machine without any user-interaction. The only thing you will see is the progress bar. If you want to avoid that as well, use the /verysilent argument instead of /silent

Note that on all machines the installation has to be performed from an administrative account and that Outlook needs to be restarted before the addin becomes available!

Configuration issues

This section covers common questions about the configuration of Lucatec® Mask in various scenarios.

When installing Lucatec® Mask in a multi-user environment like Citrix or Terminal Server how do I control who can use the addin and who can't?
(e.g. when I don't have enough licenses for all users of the server)

When installing on Citrix or Terminal Server the installer will present an additional option that is not available when installing on a regular workstation. This will allow you to install the addin in an inactive state.

Installer option "Install addin in active state&quo;

The corresponding registry entry would be:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lucatec\Mask]
"AddinActive"=dword:00000000

As a result, all users that should use the addin would have to explicitly enable it in their user profile first. This can be done via a simple checkbox in the addin's options (in Outlook: Tools->Options->Lucatec MASK).

Addin active checkbox on addin's Options page

The corresponding registry entry for enabling the addin on a per-user basis would be:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lucatec\Mask]
"AddinActive"=dword:00000001

However, doing it this way usually only makes sense when the unlicensed users are in the majority. In the reverse case it should be simpler to just install the addin in the default active state and then explicitly disable it for the users that shouldn't use it:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lucatec\Mask]
"AddinActive"=dword:00000000

If you want to prevent your licensed users from accidentally disabling the addin you can set the following registry value to hide the corresponding checkbox from the user interface:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lucatec\Mask]
"ShowAddinActiveOptionRDP"=dword:00000000
Registry options for controlling addin state and user's ability to dis-/enable the addin themselves

A general note on how the addin handles registry entries: With very very few exceptions, all options can be set both under HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. The addin will first look at HKCU and if it doesn't find a value there it will look for the same value under HKLM. In other words: as long as there are no entries under HKCU the values under HKLM define the addin's default behaviour (these can be set via the installer) but as soon as values are set under HKCU these will override the settings at the machine level.

Licensing

This section answers common questions about both the technical and the contractual side of Lucatec® Mask's licensing models.

How many licenses do I need to purchase for [scenario]? What kind of licensing model does Lucatec® Mask use? Does it matter how many mailboxes or Exchange Servers I have?

First off, Lucatec® Mask is an addin for Microsoft® Outlook. That means it gets installed on the clients, not on the server. As such, its licensing is per-client, not per-server and also not per-mailbox/Public Folder.

Lucatec® Mask uses a so-called "Floating License" model (sometimes also referred to as "concurrent user" model): Each license key grants you a "pool" of licenses that is available on your network to all machines where you registered that specific key. A license is "taken" from the pool whenever somebody starts up an Outlook instance that has Lucatec® Mask loaded in an enabled state (see this FAQ on how to disable the addin for individual users on a Terminal Server).

If all licenses are in use and another user starts up Outlook they will receive a message that the number of licensed users has been exceeded and that the addin's functionality has been disabled for the remainder of that Outlook session.

As soon as users close their Outlook sessions, the licenses are returned to the pool and may be reclaimed by previously locked out users simply by restarting their Outlook session.

What are these special offers for Citrix/Terminal Server that are mentioned on the product page?

We are offering an alternative licensing model, especially for customers with Citrix-/Terminal Server environments. This works pretty much the same as described above but here licenses are not taken out of the pool by individual Outlook user sessions but instead the counting takes place per-machine, thus allowing you a hypothetically unlimited number of users on a given number of Citrix/Terminal Servers.

This license model can be more cost-efficient than regular licenses, especially if you have large numbers of licensed(!) users that are evenly distributed across your server (farm). Otherwise, it's perfectly valid to use regular per-user licenses in a Terminal Server environment.

Contact us if you are interested in a quote for server licenses. To ensure we calculate the most efficient offer for you, please include the following information:

  • Number of users to provide with licenses
  • Number of Citrix/Terminal Servers
  • Description of how licensed users are distributed across servers (only necessary if only a subset of your users is going to work with Lucatec® Mask)

Attention: Please note that you can not simply mix license keys of the two models: Registering a per-server license on a single-user workstation means that a single Outlook instance started on that workstation will use up one entire server license! The other way round, registering a per-user key on a Terminal Server that already had a per-server key will overwrite and invalidate the latter as there can only ever be one key registered per machine. So if you have users both on workstations and Terminal Server, you have to decide between using only per-user licenses for everything or using per-server licenses on the servers and per-user licenses on the workstations.

What happens if I need more licenses?

There are currently two ways we can handle this:

  • In the simplest and most common case we will simply issue a new license key providing a second, new "pool" of licenses on your network. On small networks, and when you are not making use of the concurrent nature of the license model, this approach involves by far the least hassle.

  • There might be technical reasons why opening a second pool of licenses might not be desirable or even feasible: As noted above, there can only ever be one key registered per machine, so a second key is completely out of question for Terminal Server environments (regardless of whether they use the per-user or the per-server model). Also, on larger networks that are centrally administrated, it is usually desirable that all machines are set up identically (they might even be cloned).

    For these scenarios we can issue a so-called "Modification Key" which will modify rather than overwrite the existing key. This means that in addition to the new machines you will also have to register this Modification Key on the existing machines as well. Otherwise those would continue to assume the smaller license pool. It also means that on the new machines you will actually have to register two keys: The existing base key and the new Modification Key.

    Note that all this can be performed via remote registry access or group policy objects so you won't have to do this manually on every machine on your network. We will provide the corresponding documentation together with the Modification Key.

What options do I have to centrally manage licenses in use on our network?

As mentioned in the previous item, it is possible to distribute license information via remote registry access or group policy objects. We can also provide administrative templates (in ADM/ADMX-format) for integrating this neatly with the Group Policy Editor. Just send us a quick note to mask@lucatec.de if you are interested in these or otherwise need info about license administration.

We also do have plans for introducing an actual license server component in the future for making central administration even easier.

Does Lucatec® Mask require online activation?

No, current versions of Lucatec® Mask do not perform any form of online activation nor are licenses "hardware-locked" in any way.

However, this does also have a few downsides, e.g. the necessity for Modification Keys or the fact that orders can no longer be refunded once a key has been issued or that keys with erroneous license information (e.g. misspelt licensee name) cannot be revoked, etc. So we are strongly considering a change in this direction for future releases. Please let us know if you have any thoughts on this that you want to share.

How long will my license last?

Our regular license keys are valid for an indefinite period of time. They are only limited by the number of users (or servers respectively) and the major version number, i.e. a license key purchased for version 4.x will allow you to use all releases between 4.0.0 and a hypothetical version 4.9.99.

Is there a yearly cost involved in using Lucatec® Mask?

No, while we do offer maintenance, this is completely optional. As stated above, once purchased, you can continue to use your license indefinitely at no extra cost.

Do you offer a maintenance option?
Yes, we do. It contains free upgrades for a year, priority support and a discounted rate on any custom development. For more information (including pricing) please contact mask@lucatec.de.

Known Issues

This section describes known limitations and issues of Lucatec® Mask as well as possible remedies or workarounds if available.

Lucatec® Mask has disappeared from my Outlook. Not even reinstalling it helps. What can I do?

Sometimes after a crash or critical error Outlook will disable third-party addins that it thinks might have played a part in causing the error. To reenable them, follow these steps:

  1. On the Outlook main menu, go to Help|About Microsoft Office Outlook:
    Microsoft Outlook main menu, Help | About Microsoft Office Outlook
  2. Then, on the About screen, click the Disabled Items button:
    Disabled Items dialog
  3. Select Lucatec® Mask from the list.
  4. Click the Enable button.
  5. Restart Outlook.
  6. If you can still remember what kind of error led to the disabling of the addin, ideally including the text of any error messages that appeared, please contact us at mask@lucatec.de and tell us about it.
When I'm sending E-Mails from applications other than Outlook Lucatec® Mask does not seem to work. Why is that?

In all versions of Outlook to date, when applications create E-Mail messages via the so called MAPI interface, Outlook will not notify third-party addins about this, thus not allowing them to "hook" into the process before the message gets sent. As a result Lucatec® Mask will neither apply any context-dependent message options (i.e. sender, signature, save target) nor will its Message Options button appear on the toolbar allowing you to set these options yourself. A slight improvement in Outlook 2007 does at least allow the addin's button to be available on the "Ribbon" control but it's still not possible to automatically apply any message options right on message creation.

Here's a random and far from complete list of commonly used applications that exhibit this problem:

  • Microsoft Windows Explorer (right-click->Send To->Mail Recipient)
  • Adobe Reader
  • TechSmith SnagIt
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Visio

Note that as of version 2.2.0 Lucatec® Mask includes an additional addin for Microsoft Word and Excel which will allow you to use the File|Send to|Mail recipient (as Attachment) menu items in those applications without the limitations listed above. For all other applications there currently exists no workaround.

I'm using Microsoft Outlook 2002 (aka Outlook XP) and Lucatec® Mask keeps crashing or hanging it. What can I do?

This is most likely due to a bug in Outlook that was only fixed in Office XP Service Pack 3. Lucatec® Mask will not work with Outlook 2002 prior to Service Pack 3. It is strongly recommended that you always install the latest available Office service packs.

You can get the Office XP Service Pack 3 either via automatic update from Microsoft Office Update or directly from Microsoft Downloads.

I have the option to "Save replies with original message" enabled and Lucatec® Mask is not storing my sent messages correctly. What can I do?
Lucatec® Mask can currently not move sent messages when this option is enabled as it relies on messages being stored into the primary user's Sent Items folder. All Outlook options that prevent this (another example would be the explicit Save sent message to option on Outlook's Message Options dialog) will stop Lucatec® Mask from moving or copying sent messages to the desired location. The only remedy currently is not to use these options.

Known Issues in older versions

The following issues are only listed for reference. They have been resolved in recent product releases.

I'm using Microsoft Word to edit my eMails and it seems Lucatec® Mask is not working properly. What can I do? (Resolved in 2.2.0)

Lucatec® Mask versions until 2.1.2 had several limitations when using Microsoft Word to edit eMails:

  • Auto-insertion of signatures (new in version 2.0) was entirely disabled.
  • The Message Options toolbar button (new in version 2.1) was not available.
  • The From field remained empty, i.e. there was no visual feedback to indicate that Lucatec® Mask was actually doing its work. However, the corrected sender address did get used nevertheless when you actually sent the message.

All of the above have been resolved in Lucatec® Mask 2.2.0 for all versions of Outlook except Outlook 2000. If you are still using that version of Outlook the only known remedy currently is to disable WordMail (i.e. uncheck Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages on the Mail Format tab of the main Options dialog).

Why can't I install Lucatec® Mask on Windows Vista at all? I keep getting registration errors! (Resolved in 2.2.0)
C:\Program Files\Lucatec\Mask\LucatecMask.dll Unable to register the DLL/OCX: RegSvr32 failed with exit code 0xC0000096. Click Retry to try again, Ignore to proceed anyway (not recommended), or Abort to cancel installation.

Windows Vista was not officially supported by Lucatec® Mask prior to version 2.2.0. This particular issue has been resolved in that version. It was caused by an incompatibility with Vista-specific changes to the so called "DEP Hardware Protection". Disabling that feature of the operating system has reportedly worked as a workaround for a number of customers. Here's how to do that if you do not want to upgrade Lucatec® Mask yet (steps courtesy of tech-recipes.com):

  1. Click Start
  2. Click All Programs
  3. Click Accessories
  4. Right Click on Command Prompt
  5. Left click on Run as Administrator
  6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
  7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window: 
    bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
  8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
  9. Reboot and DEP should be off.
A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this? If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose 'No'. I'm using Microsoft Outlook 2002 (aka Outlook XP) and whenever I create a new message or reply I get a security warning. What can I do? (Resolved in 2.2.0)

This was a known issue in the addin's signature insertion engine that was fixed in the 2.2.0 release. The only known workarounds were either to disable signature insertion or to update to a different version of Microsoft Outlook (both 2000 and 2003 did work).