KB45949: How to hide contacts from being viewed by other users in the Contact Browser in MicroStrategy 9.3.1 and newer versions.

By default, all contacts are visible to all users as contacts do not have ACLs. This behavior is documented in the following Strategy KnowledgeBase technical note:
 
KB37912 - When a user creates a contact to subscribe to a report via email in Strategy 9.x, all users that can subscribe to the report can see that contact.
 
Starting in Strategy 9.3.1, users can be blocked from viewing contacts in a certain group by creating a new registry key for this feature. The following steps describes this procedure:
 
Note: The instructions below assume that there are 2 users - User A and User B, each a member of their respective groups - Group A and Group B.  Contacts - Contact A and Contact B are created and linked to User A and User B respectively.  In order to block user A from seeing Contact B in the contact browser, follow the steps below:

• Create a backup copy the Windows registry on the Intelligence Server machine.
• On the Intelligence Server machine, open the registry editor and go to the following location:
   
  
  Sample Code/Error
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\MicroStrategy\DSS Server\Castor
  
   
  
• Add a new DWORD registry key called "ACLCheckOnUserGroupfoAllContacts" and set it as 1 to enable the feature (otherwise, set to 0 to disable feature). Note that the spelling of "for" as "fo" is correct.
   
  

• Restart the Intelligence Server.
• Login to Developer as Administrator, modify the ACL of group Group B and add a new entry for User A set to "Denied All" as shown below. This will block User A from seeing all contacts linked to users who are members of Group B.
  
  

• In Strategy Web, create an email subscription as User A and notice that Contact B will no longer show up in the list of available recipients in the contact browser.

Note: If the Intelligence Server is located on a UNIX/Linux system, the registry key mentioned above should be created in the MSIReg.reg file under the key shown below. Ensure that a backup of the MSIReg.reg file is created before making the following changes:
 
Sample Code/Error
 
"ACLCheckOnUserGroupfoAllContacts"=dword:00000001
  
WARNING:
Modifying registry values incorrectly may cause serious, system-wide problems that may require the re-installation of Microsoft Windows NT. Any edit of the registry is done at the user's own risk. Since these are user-initiated changes, they are not covered by any Strategy warranty. If using Microsoft Windows NT, the user should backup the registry and/or update an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) prior to alterations.