Determine mail client usage

Not applicable

Is there an easy way to determine if our users are Mail.app users or Entourage users?

We have Entourage deployed on every Mac and Mail.app comes with every Mac. We're trying to determine which users need the patches for Entourage quickly vs the users who never touch it.

4 REPLIES 4

stevewood
Honored Contributor II
Honored Contributor II

Easiest way I can think to do it would be to check the time/date stamp of
the Entourage database file in

/Users/<user>/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2008 Identities/Main
Identity/Database

Steve Wood
Director of IT
swood at integer.com

The Integer Group | 1999 Bryan St. | Ste. 1700 | Dallas, TX 75201
T 214.758.6813 | F 214.758.6901 | C 940.312.2475

Not applicable

What would be the easiest to determine this, I know an ls Database on that folder would determine it. How would we make it generic so it gets the logged in users info?

David Marcantonio
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facebook.com/dma

RobertHammen
Valued Contributor II

I believe the default email client is stored in com.apple.LaunchServices.plist (at least on 10.6.x), located in the users' preference folder (~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist
On Mar 22, 2010, at 3:10 PM, David Marcantonio wrote:

By default in 10.6 this is a binary file, so I can do:

"plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist"

then

"cat ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist | grep com.microsoft.entourage"

if no results = mail, or something else is the default email client
if I get results (multiple lines of com.microsoft.entourage) = then Entourage is the default email client

for Mail.app you'd search for com.apple.mail

Perhaps one of the better scripters could whip this up for your usage. This would seem like a great use for extension attributes in 7.2...

ernstcs
Contributor III

I want to say a script that parses the data you want and reports it as an extended attribute in the new JSS version 7.2. =) Based on Roberts last email you could pull the default email program for the logged on user’s settings, or use the date idea as well.

I can’t whip that up off the top of my head, I know shame on me, but I am good at ideas...not always how to make it work, particularly when I’m of the clock. =)

You can also get application usage reports right in the JSS if you have it enabled. However, I think the product isn’t quite friendly to use for reporting at the individual level yet, but that could be inexperience with that portion talking. It’s great for a Computer Group, Department, or Building. In a large environment it would be hard per system since you’d have to look at each box’s logs...

Craig E