Disable MySite and Tagging in SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 provides some cool social features like social tag, note board, and ratings which nicely integrated with MySite. However there might be chance that you don’t want to roll out these features, due to various reasons like change management, training, and governance.

You can disable these features in your server farm and enable them when you are ready. Here are the instructions to disable the features.

1. Logon to Central Administration web site, go to the Application Management section, and click Manage service applications.
2. Click the user profile service application item in your farm (by default, it is “User Profile Service Application”)
3. Click “Manage User Permissions” under People.
4. In the “Permissions for User Profile Service Application” pop up, select a user group, e.g. All authenticated Users.
5. Uncheck the “Permissions” item, base on what you want to disable. For your information
• Use Personal Features – My Links, My Colleagues, Personalization.
• Create Personal Site – My Site
• Use Social Features – Tagging, Note Board, and Ratings
6. Click OK to save the settings.

Please note, unselect Social Features does not remove the “Tags and Notes” group from the ribbon. It will still show up on the page but it will grey out.

To hide the “Tags and Notes” from your site, there’s actually a farm feature that you need to disable. To disable this feature:

1. Logon to Central Administration web site, go to the System Settings section, and click Manage farm features.
2. There is a feature called “Social Tags and Note Board Ribbon Controls”. Deactivate it to hide the “Tags and Notes” group from the ribbon.
3. Now go to your site and the “Tags and Notes” should be removed from the Ribbon.