Hide 'My Site' and 'My Links' links

I have searched about this particular issue a lot. And all of the results guide me as to how to hide the link either using CSS or changing the master page in SPD. Bottom-line there has to be some customization to achieve this.

However I always wondered if I have not allowed the users to create 'My Sites' (self-site creation disabled) then why should SharePoint show the 'My Site' link. There has to be a direct/simple solution to fix this.

I just stumbled upon the solution a few days back and its a simple permission setting. Here is how to do it.

1. Open SSP Home
2. Click 'Personalization Service Permission' link
3. Click 'NT_AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users' (will hide link for all users in the farm)
4. Uncheck 'Create personal site' permission. This will hide the 'My Site' link
5. Uncheck 'Use personal features' permission. This will hide 'My Links' link
6. Save

Thats it. The link won't show any more and users wont get the ugly error regading contacting admin blah blah.. when they click it accidently.

Now as this is a permission related setting we can allow selective users to create their 'My Site' while all others can not. Just create/use a AD group and add the relevant permissions to it. So now you can allow the Sales people to create My Sites while all others in your farm can not.

Hope this helps.