Can't figure out how to stop New Outlook for Windows /the Win11 Mail App from starting with Windows

[britechguy]

This is a new one on me. Within the last couple of days, as I've been playing with Outlook for Windows and the Windows Mail App and toggling between the two regardless of which state I'm in, I cannot completely shut down the client.

It used to be if I exited, it had no process running in the background still checking for mail, and it never started on its own when Windows starts. Now it's doing both, and I have tried to find a setting in both interfaces that would allow me to stop these behaviors, but I can't find one.

Has anyone else encountered this and, if so, do you know how to get the behavior back to "only running when I choose to start the program myself"?

 

[ThatPlace928]

This is a new one on me. Within the last couple of days, as I've been playing with Outlook for Windows and the Windows Mail App and toggling between the two regardless of which state I'm in, I cannot completely shut down the client.

It used to be if I exited, it had no process running in the background still checking for mail, and it never started on its own when Windows starts. Now it's doing both, and I have tried to find a setting in both interfaces that would allow me to stop these behaviors, but I can't find one.

Has anyone else encountered this and, if so, do you know how to get the behavior back to "only running when I choose to start the program myself"?

Try disabling it in the startup apps in Task Manager?

 

[britechguy]

Try disabling it in the startup apps in Task Manager?

Excellent idea (though it should not be necessary). That being said, what should I disable? I see nothing (and this is all my startup items) that would apply:


And here's what's shown in the processes list of Task Manager:



If I kill of Mail by hand, that works, but it used to be that I did not have to do this and Mail did not run unless I fired it up and would completely exit when I closed it.

 

[ThatPlace928]

Excellent idea (though it should not be necessary). That being said, what should I disable? I see nothing (and this is all my startup items) that would apply:


And here's what's shown in the processes list of Task Manager:


If I kill of Mail by hand, that works, but it used to be that I did not have to do this and Mail did not run unless I fired it up and would completely exit when I closed it.

I honestly couldn't tell you what to disable. Since it's not in the list of startups, then perhaps in the apps themselves?

 

[britechguy]

Since it's not in the list of startups, then perhaps in the apps themselves?

And therein is the Catch-22. I could have sworn it once was in the Settings of either the Mail App, Outlook for Windows, or both. But now I can find nothing at all in either that gives a "startup with Windows" checkbox or toggle. I'll look again, but I really don't think I could have missed it.

 

[ThatPlace928]

And therein is the Catch-22. I could have sworn it once was in the Settings of either the Mail App, Outlook for Windows, or both. But now I can find nothing at all in either that gives a "startup with Windows" checkbox or toggle. I'll look again, but I really don't think I could have missed it.

Sorry I couldn't help. I wish you luck. If you figure it out, though, I'd like to know. I haven't come across that situation yet.

 

[britechguy]

It might not be related to the Mail App, per se, and could have been a change in Outlook for Windows. I was suddenly getting notifications from "New Outlook" (Outlook for Windows) after I'd closed it that were not occurring before. Here's a screenshot of something I just found:



The checkbox for Send notifications when Outlook is closed was checked by default. I've now unchecked it, and am waiting to see if what I considered a major annoyance has gone away. But I know that I did not receive these notifications when Outlook for Windows or the Mail App were closed until a few short days ago, so something changed.

 

[ThatPlace928]

It might not be related to the Mail App, per se, and could have been a change in Outlook for Windows. I was suddenly getting notifications from "New Outlook" (Outlook for Windows) after I'd closed it that were not occurring before. Here's a screenshot of something I just found:

View attachment 15553

The checkbox for Send notifications when Outlook is closed was checked by default. I've now unchecked it, and am waiting to see if what I considered a major annoyance has gone away. But I know that I did not receive these notifications when Outlook for Windows or the Mail App were closed until a few short days ago, so something changed.

The worst part of updates is that we rarely know what has changed. I hope unchecking the box helps.

 

[HCHTech]

What happens if you right-click the process in task manager and choose "Go to Details"? That should give you the name of what's running, and "Open file location" should give you the location.

 

[britechguy]

@HCHTech

Doing as you say on the process identified in task manager as "Mail" produces this:



Still nothing I can find, anywhere, that allows me to control this via any settings.

 

[HCHTech]

Hmm. I suppose they could have been extra obnoxious and hard-coded the thing to auto-start. A bit of searching on that process seems to confirm that. There is a thread on the MS forums that basically says "uninstall the Mail app if you don't want these starting".

 

[britechguy]

Another interesting development is that even though I managed to stop mail notifications from Outlook for Windows when the main UI is not running, that didn't do the same for appointments in Calendar. I had those present themselves, unbidden, last night. I'll have to check to see if there's a corresponding setting in Calendar of Outlook for Windows in regard to suppressing notifications.

 

[Philippe]

Give it a try: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns

 

[phaZed]

How about using Autoruns? It shows a lot of 'other' registry autostart areas that are not shown in the Task Manager.