Modify the Outlook CustomUI XML by powershell - powershell

Question

friends. I want to check every of my company users' outlook customUI configuration file. Delete 2 UI buttons if any. I am trying to do it by powershell. But failed to do so. Any advice for my script?
Below is the XML content of olkexpplorer.officeUI. I need to check & delete the items in blockquotes in case they are existed in the configuration file.
<mso:customUI xmlns:x1="Microsoft.Forefront.SpamReporterAddin.Connect" xmlns:mso="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
<mso:ribbon>
<mso:qat />
<mso:tabs>
<mso:tab idQ="mso:TabMail">
<mso:group id="mso_c1.45620CF" label="Phishing Report" imageMso="TrustCenter" autoScale="true"
<mso:control idQ="x1:ExplorerPhishReportMenuButton" imageMso="TrustCenter" visible="true"/>
</mso:group>
> <mso:group id="mso_c2.14817EBA" label="Junk" autoScale="true">
> <mso:control idQ="x1:ExplorerSpamReportMenuButton" visible="true" />
> <mso:control idQ="x1:ExplorerPhishReportMenuButton" imageMso="GreenBall" visible="true" />
> </mso:group>
</mso:tab>
</mso:tabs>
</mso:ribbon>
</mso:customUI>
Here is my script
$input = [xml](Get-Content -Path “$path_to_office\olkexplorer.officeUI”)
$deletenames="mso_c2.14817EBA"
($input.customUI.ChildNodes |Where-object { $deletenames -contains $_.Name}) | ForEach-
Object{[void]$_.ParentNode.RemoveChild($_)}
$input.save(“$path_to_office\new.officeUI”)

Answer 1

First of all, it is not clear how the ribbon XML looks like after running your code:
$input.save(“$path_to_office\new.officeUI”)
Anyway, you can do any modifications until the ribbon XML is loaded by the host application. At runtime, you may consider using callbacks where they are available and call the IRIbbonUI.Invalidate or IRibbonUI.InvalidateControl methods to get your custom UI invalidated and callbacks triggered. Here is what MSDN states:
For each of the callbacks the add-in implements, the responses are cached. For example, if an add-in writer implements the getImage callback procedure for a button, the function is called once, the image loads, and then if the image needs to be updated, the cached image is used instead of recalling the procedure. This process remains in-place until the add-in signals that the cached values are invalid by using the Invalidate method, at which time, the callback procedure is again called and the return response is cached. The add-in can then force an immediate update of the UI by calling the Refresh method.

Answer 2

The problem with your approach is that ChildNodes() only returns the immediate child nodes and not all child nodes (and using $input as a variable name is not considered a good practice anyway because its a reserved variable name).
So instead of ChildNodes() I would access the child node directly like so
$input.customUI.ribbon.tabs.tab.group | where-object { $DeleteNames -contains $_.id}
I would prefer the System.Xml.Linq classes like XDocument and XElement over the [xml] type alias because they make dealing with Xml inside a PowerShell script a little more convenient.
if this is the input xml:
$XmlCode = #'
<mso:customUI xmlns:mso="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui">
<mso:ribbon>
<mso:qat><mso:sharedControls>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FileNewDefault" visible="false"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FileOpen" visible="false"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FileSave" visible="true"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FileSendAsAttachment" visible="false"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FilePrintQuick" visible="false"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:SpellingAndGrammar" visible="false"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:Undo" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:RedoOrRepeat" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:TableDrawTable" visible="false"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FileOpenRecentFile" visible="false"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FontDialog" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FontSizeDecreaseWord" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:FontSize" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:PageSetupDialog" visible="true"
insertBeforeQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint"/>
<mso:control idQ="mso:PrintPreviewAndPrint" visible="true"/>
</mso:sharedControls>
</mso:qat>
</mso:ribbon>
</mso:customUI>
'#
the following Powershell commands would remove all mso:control nodes with visible="false":
using namespace System.Xml.Linq
Add-Type -Assembly System.Xml.Linq
$xmlCode = "<<as shown above>>"
$xRoot = [XDocument]::Parse($xmlCode)
$msoNs = [XNamespace]::get("http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2009/07/customui")
$DeleteNodes = $xRoot.Descendants($msoNs + "control").where{$_.Attribute("visible").Value -eq "false"}
$DeleteNodes.ForEach{$_.Remove()}
$xRoot.ToString()
# Save the new xml
$XmlPath = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
$xRoot.Save($XmlPath)
XDocument has a Load() method for loading a xml file directly so there is no need to use the Parse() method (I was using for the sake of this example).
The only small drawback comparing to [xml] is that you have to consider namespaces.