TechTips - Disable MySite and MyLinks in MOSS 2007

I recently built a site for some of my customers, and they were not interested in the My Site and My Links from the get go. They wanted to build their entire site, customize it and then later add additional functionality for the users. Well the fun part with SharePoint is trying to figure out where to turn things on and off is hidden. I have listed the steps below for anyone wanting to turn off the My Sites and My Links in their MOSS 2007 site.

1. Log on to the server hosting the Central Administration site for your MOSS 2007 instance
2. Log into Central Administration.
3. Under Shared Services Administration in the Quick Launch bar on the left hand side of the Central Admin control Panel, select the one set to run the My Sites. (mine was labeled SharedServices1)
4. In the "User Profiles and My Sites" click on the "Personalization services permissions" link.
5. For all users you want to remove the personalization functionality, click the check box next to the names and then click on Modify Permissions for Selected users(for example, NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users).
6. On the "Modify Permissions: Shared Service Rights" page, uncheck "Use personal features". Click OK to save.
7. Now the functionality should be turned off. You might have to reset the SharePoint Services before the changes take place, but most likely not.

One thing I ran into with other descriptions of how to turn off these links was that you cannot uncheck everything in the "Modify Permissions: Shared Service Rights" page. From what I can tell from un-checking them individually the "Create personal sites" shuts off the My Sites and "Use personal features" shuts off My Links. But un-checking "Use personal features" appeared to modify both My Site and My Links permissions, so if you want both turned off then un-check the "Use personal features".

Also another little tid bit of advice, if you do not make the above changes to all users in the list, you will still see the My Site and My Links displayed on the webpage. This means that if you make changes to some of the users but not all and login as one of the users that still have the permissions they will see the links still. For example in my case I was listed in the list and removed the permissions from Authenticated Users. Well when I logged in I saw the links, because my account even though I fall under the authenticated users type was in the list still and the properties superseded the settings. You must modify permissions for all the users you want to see the changes.

One last note, if you don't see the changes right away give it a few minutes and the Timer Job for SharePoint will run, you should then see the changes take place. Hope all of this helps.