Skype for Business is unable to sign in to Office 365 using a Mandatory Profile. When you try to sign in with Skype for Business 2016, you receive an error:
“Can’t sign in to Skype for Business
There was a problem acquiring a personal certificate required to sign in.”
Searching for any troubleshooting steps to try, I tried everything I found but eventually had to abandon using mandatory profiles in this area. The problem occurs with Lync 2013, Skype for Business 2013, and Skype for Business 2016 on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 Update. During my deep dive to investigate the error, I found a few Registry entries and a Group Policy setting which can make the first-run experience much more user-friendly.
I was able to deploy these settings using Group Policy Preferences to easily distribute the values to anybody that signs in to the computer. Each Registry entry is under HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice16.0Lync
Hide the “7 quick tips” slide show on first launch:
Value name IsBasicTutorialSeenByUser
Value type REG_DWORD
Value data 0x1 (1)
Make Skype for Business think this is not its first time being run:
Value name FirstRun
Value type REG_DWORD
Value data 0x1 (1)
Hide the prompt to “Make Skype for Business better by uploading usage information to Microsoft?”:
Value name UserConsentedTelemetryUpload
Value type REG_DWORD
Value data 0x0 (0)
Hide the balloon notification that Skype for Business is still running when you click the X and it goes to the system tray:
Value name DSBkgndMode
Value type REG_DWORD
Value data 0x1 (1)
The last change I found came through Group Policy. Using the Office 2016 Administrative Templates, you can hide the prompt that asks if Windows Updates should install updates only.
As a User Configuration, under PoliciesAdministrative TemplatesMicrosoft Office 2016Miscellaneous
Set Suppress recommended settings dialog to Enabled.
With those configurations in place, Skype for Business should be much faster to start up with fewer prompts for user action, saving particular annoyances for new profiles or people that log into many different computers.