With Status messages giving privy to what your doing, where and when, maybe you want to jazz up your Lync client with some custom status messages? Get your hacking white hat on, let’s do this thing;

Before you begin, note the following. Lync is the successor to Communicator, so the registry key still bears that name. Don’t panic about it. Lync will only support four custom presence messages, so resist the urge to make more even though it seems you could just add new lines to the file. Finally, you can edit the text in the file below to your heart’s content, but don’t exceed 64 characters in any single message.

1.Create a XML file on your desktop using your favourite text editor and call it presence.xml.

2. Paste the following text into that file, making sure you don’t get smart quotes by accident.

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<customStates
xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates”
xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=
“http://schemas.microsoft.com/09/2005/communicator/customStates
“>
<customState ID=”1″ availability=”online”>
<activity LCID=”1033″>Loving my commute</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID=”2″ availability=”busy”>
<activity LCID=”1033″>Deadline looming, send coffee</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID=”3″ availability=”busy”>
<activity LCID=”1033″>But not at my PC…call my mobile.</activity>
</customState>
<customState ID=”4″ availability=”do-not-disturb”>
<activity LCID=”1033″>Presenting, so everyone will see</activity>
</customState>
</customStates>

3. Launch regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftCommunicator.

4. First, you will need to tell Lync it can accept a presence.xml file without using HTTPS. Create a REG_DWORD called EnableSIPHighSecurityMode and set that value to 0. If you already have that string present, just edit the value to 0.

5. Next, create a REG_SZ (string) called CustomStateURL and give it a value of “file:///C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Lync/presence.xml” if you are running 64bit, or “file:///C:/Program Files/Microsoft Lync/presence.xml” if you are running 32bit. In either case, don’t include the quotes.

6. Then, create a REG_DWORD called EnableAppearOffline and give it a value of 1.

7. Copy the presence.xml file to whichever path from step 5 is appropriate for you.

8. Exit and relaunch Lync, and see your new status options.

Mario