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Todd Klindt's home page > Todd Klindt's Office 365 Admin Blog > Posts > How to prevent users from creating MySites in SharePoint 2010
August 20
How to prevent users from creating MySites in SharePoint 2010

Anyone that I've talked to about SharePoint 2010 knows I like MySites. I think everyone should have a MySite. My cat has two. Unfortunately not everyone agrees with me. About once a week I get asked, "How do I disable MySites? I'm a big meanie." I figured it was time to put this into a blog post, so I don't have to fight back tears every time I have to explain how to do this. I'm tearing up now as I type this.

First, go into Central Administration and click Manage service applications

Then click your User Profile Service Application and click Manage

In the management screen, click Manage User Permissions

You'll get a window that looks like this:

 

By default all authenticated users have permission to "Create Personal Site." To keep people from creating them, remove that permission for both authenticated users entries. Users will no longer be able to create MySites. At this point you can add users or domain groups to the top of the screen and give that group permission to create personal sites. The recommendation I usually give it to create an AD group for people that can have personal sites. Then as you decide to give users permission to create personal sites, you drop them into that group.

This can be done in PowerShell, too (I think). I'll figure it out and blog it later.

tk

Comments

I know its painful, but thanks..

Our company is working a POC, then pilot, to full company roll out.  I'm a proponent of MySites, I to believe everyone needs one.  However this approach is perfect for our my evil SharePoint plan!  Especially that last bit about the group, hadn't thought of that, too easy!  Thanks again!

DM
Seattle
 on 8/20/2010 11:56 PM

how to enable MySites but keep blogging disabled?

How would you enable MySites but keep the blogging feature disabled? I want my users to enjoy MySites (because I'm not a big meanie) but I'm not ready for them to blog just yet (because I'm a medium meanie).
 on 1/18/2011 2:45 PM

What about how to exlude?

It's too bad that MS didn't create a Deny permission at this level.  Everyone at our company is allowed to have a My Site EXCEPT this group of 50 users.  That's not easy to do with the way MS set this up. 
 on 2/28/2011 8:47 AM

Re: What about how to exlude?

Is it unfortunate that there is not a deny option. If you wanted you could use a web application policy and deny though 50 users access to the My Site web app. Then they wouldn't be able to get to the My Site host to create a My Site. It's not ideal, but it's a work around.

tk
Todd O. KlindtNo presence information on 2/28/2011 12:03 PM

Powershell commands

Did you ever blog about the PowerShell commands to manage this? I would love to know what they are!

-Marcel
 on 3/2/2011 9:36 PM

Re: Powershell commands

I haven't found the PowerShell to set that permission. Sorry.

tk
Todd O. KlindtNo presence information on 3/6/2011 8:07 PM

Disabling Links

I think there's one point of clarification here, unless there's a bug or some other unforseen functionality I'm missing.  My goal for this was to prevent users from creating My Sites by removing the My Site link off their welcome menu.  When I uncheck this setting in CA, nothing changed, and both My Profile and My Site showed.  If I unchecked BOTH "Use Personal Features" and "Create Personal Site", now both links disappeared which is my desired affect.  I can re-enable "Use Personal Features" and both links are still gone.  Weird.

This might be some form of bug as I noticed this entry one of the KBs for the just released Aug 2011 CU:

"•Consider the following scenario:
◦A site administrator disables your social features on a SharePoint Server 2010 site.
◦You log on to a SharePoint team site.
◦You click your user name in the upper-right corner of the team site.
In this scenario, the My Site link and the My Profile link are not displayed in the dropdown menu."

I haven't tested, but might be relevant.  Thanks Todd for the great info as always!

Doug
 on 9/7/2011 8:33 AM

Re: Disabling Links

Doug,
Don't feel bad, this is all confusing. When you uncheck "Create Personal Site" like in the image above it does NOT remove the My Profile or My Site links. It does remove the My Content link, which is the link that creates the MySite. The My Profile and My Site pages are not in the user's MySite, they are pages in the MySite Host.

tk
Todd O. KlindtNo presence information on 9/7/2011 8:39 AM

Creating a SharePoint Group

Hi,

I was wondering if there was a way of creating a SharePoint group (rather than an AD group) that could be given permissions in this screen? I am trying to give access to mysites for ALL users, but allowing only a handful of users the ability to create a personal site. I'm trying to stick to using SharePoint groups, but of course, most of the SharePoint groups apply to site collections, and MySites works a little differently from that point of view. Is this possible or do I need to create an AD group to achieve this?
 on 2/13/2013 9:05 AM

Re: Creating a SharePoint Group

Hey Ryan,
I don't know if any way use a SharePoint group to limit MySite creation. Sorry. :(

tk
Todd O. KlindtNo presence information on 2/15/2013 4:25 PM
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