Outlook 365, Question about new pop-up

[britechguy]

It seems that lately Microsoft has been rolling out quite a few "little updates" to Microsoft 365 that are making certain things in all of the Office applications differ from their behaviors in Office 2016 and 2019. Since I'm using Office 2016, I really can't test out certain things anymore.

On one of the blind-focused technology lists, someone just posted, "I have Windows 10 and Office 365 on my PC. A recent update must’ve changed things, because now when I arrow through my list of emails, if I stop on one item for more than a second or two, it pops up some other kind of window about replying etc., and I can’t get back to the list."

This is a behavior I've never experienced, and have no idea how to replicate, but I suspect a number among our readership has. I presume there is a setting to turn this behavior on/off, and the default is on. If anyone can direct me so that I can direct her, I would appreciate it.

 

[Sky-Knight]

That's because Office 2021 is here... M365 is not Office 2019 anymore.

The only thing I can think of is conversation view...

View tab, there's a tick box that says "show as conversations". It's off by default though... at least it historically is. If it's on, and you linger on a mail it pulls all the mails it thinks belong together into a sub menu. The screen reader is probably not following that transition.

 

[britechguy]

Conversation view has not acted this way historically, that's all I can say. I try to encourage the use of conversation view because the threading is so convenient, particularly when you participate in email lists and need to be able to catch up on all content since the last time you looked.

I'm going to suggest trying Escape, at the very least, to dismiss whatever it is that's come up and has focus.

I most often solve this sort of thing either by seeing it myself or remoting in and seeing it on the machine in question.

I am really coming to despise Microsoft 365 because of the endless cavalcade of "small changes" to defaults that have been in place for as long as I can remember. I have no issue with new features or the like, but I do have an issue with the random changing of default behaviors that people have been using for years in order to "feature" the new feature. I've always hated when MS has done this, period. I don't mind being asked, but I do mind being forced without notice. And it's even worse for screen reader users.

 

[britechguy]

That's because Office 2021 is here... M365 is not Office 2019 anymore.

True, but all of them share a substantial code base with Office 2016, which is abundantly clear when you drill down looking at the under the hood version numbering.

Again, it comes back, for me, to not liking MS changing default behaviors that have been in place, literally, for decades, for existing features to emphasize some new bell or whistle.

 

[Sky-Knight]

So Microsoft should simply stop developing and evolving because you said so? That's irrational...

Evolution is change, this industry is change. And while the major version number of Office hasn't changed since 2016, there are a horde of other things that have. Outlook in particular changes its UI substantially when used as an Exchange client vs anything else. But that's always been the case...

 

[britechguy]

So Microsoft should simply stop developing and evolving because you said so? That's irrational...

Indeed it is. And it has nothing to do with what I said.

Please read what I wrote.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Indeed it is. And it has nothing to do with what I said.

Please read what I wrote.

I did read what you wrote... twice.

It's mature software, all that's left is minor incremental changes based on telemetry. But you seem shocked that's exactly what they're doing...

This sort of thing is great for the every-man, but not so much for edge cases... I'm not sure how you can use Windows for those that are blind... it's a visual system. That's a huge challenge...

 

[britechguy]

No, you didn't read what I wrote, you read what you wanted it to say.

What is so difficult about the concept, "If you've (as in Microsoft has) had default behavior X, for decades, that if they choose to change it the end user should be given the choice to prevent that."?

It's no different than the inanity that was going on, and blessedly has almost entirely stopped, in the early days of Windows 10 where Feature Updates would reset many settings to Microsoft defaults after end users had chosen something else. That should virtually never happen, and on the very, very rare occasion where it's necessary a huge warning should occur as part of the Feature Update along the lines of, "If you have reconfigured {Setting X} then please recheck it. It will have been set to {insert value here} by this update regardless of what you had set it to in the past."

There have been a number of these sorts of tweaks going on in Office programs, where things that had been working in a given way for years, were just, out of the blue, changed because MS felt like it. Sorry, but that's not OK, and that's regardless of the visual status of the user.

You are blatantly ignoring the real issue, and that's not Microsoft adding bells and whistles, or even that they change defaults (though that should be avoided as much as possible), but that they make changes that directly affect end users who've been used to one thing, for ages, without any warning. That's just crap, and always has been.

And that you cannot imagine how you can use Windows for those that are blind is a limitation of your own imagination. They've been doing it for decades, starting first with the JAWS screen reader, later with Windows Eyes (now defunct) and NVDA (still going strong), and now with Narrator added into the mix. It's not a particular challenge when it comes to data driven, not image driven, programs under Windows. The UI has been navigable non-visually for decades, and keyboard shortcuts that many sighted have no idea exist have been around since the days of DOS (and probably wouldn't be a part of Windows had they not been directly carried over from the pre-Windows era).

 

[Markverhyden]

"I have Windows 10 and Office 365 on my PC. A recent update must’ve changed things, because now when I arrow through my list of emails, if I stop on one item for more than a second or two, it pops up some other kind of window about replying etc., and I can’t get back to the list."

When that happens have they tried hitting the escape key? Often that'll close a new popup leaving the user back at the previous step.

 

[britechguy]

When that happens have they tried hitting the escape key?

I suggested that, as it almost universally closes pop-ups of all sorts.

The response was that it did not seem to work, but there's a lack of certainty on that because the misbehavior seems to have resolved itself, at least for the moment.

I hate nothing more than intermittent errors, regardless of the arena we're talking about. And in computing they're way more annoying, and often elusive to track to their root(s) and resolve, than in many others. But there are always complications in resolving any intermittent issue anywhere.

 

[Markverhyden]

I hate nothing more than intermittent errors, regardless of the arena we're talking about. And in computing they're way more annoying, and often elusive to track to their root(s) and resolve, than in many others. But there are always complications in resolving any intermittent issue anywhere.

Gremlins. Can't hate them too much since they keep the revenue flowing.

 

[fincoder]

Because of the feature updates in the 365 subscription product, those users such as vision-impaired needing consistency in the UI might prefer to buy the Office 2019 or 2021 product that doesn't get feature updates.

 

[britechguy]

Because of the feature updates in the 365 subscription product, those users such as vision-impaired needing consistency in the UI might prefer to buy the Office 2019 or 2021 product that doesn't get feature updates.

Oh, believe me, there are many who would love this, were it an option. For home machines most who use screen readers will avoid subscription software like the plague secondary to unanticipated and unannounced changes in either UI structure or longstanding UI behavior.

But a very great many are using machines supplied by employers, schools, or similar where Microsoft 365 is the one, and only, option. Hence the reason I turned to the wisdom of the cohort. I am happy with Office 2016 and will likely continue to be for some years. Up until very, very recently I could reliably use Office 2016 almost interchangeably with Microsoft 365 equivalents and know that my findings would apply. But that has begun to not be true, particularly over the last couple of months.

I also know, all too well, that these sorts of issues can often be the direct result of user error. This one, however, didn't seem to be. But I could be entirely wrong about that, but it's my impression.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Gremlins. Can't hate them too much since they keep the revenue flowing.

You know... this isn't a bad way to describe it.

September's updates have made Outlook do all sorts of crazy things on my systems before they're rebooted. I should have suggested that first...

Also @britechguy settings get changed with upgrades... they simply do. This can be controlled in M365 via the tenant settings, I have all of my clients in the semi-annual update cycles for a reason... the monthly stuff is just too annoying to keep up with. Given the nature of that setting, and the legal responsibilities do a blind employee... there might be a means to coerce the owner into having this setting. Though I'd just encourage them to configure things that way anyway... it seriously saves a TON of tickets on all sorts of things, Quickbooks comes to mind quickly.

M365 Admin -> Settings -> Org Settings -> Office Installation Options

By default it's set to Current Channel, it needs to be at least Monthly Enterprise Channel for sanity... for environments that need even more stability there's Every Six Months.

 

[britechguy]

This can be controlled in M365 via the tenant settings, I have all of my clients in the semi-annual update cycles for a reason... the monthly stuff is just too annoying to keep up with.

The following is not, in any way, meant as an insult toward you, as this is a great idea: But this matters, why, to the end user? I certainly never held the slightest bit of sway with the IT departments of my employers, and their update policies, over the course of decades. And that was when I was in IT myself.

Even playing "the ADA card" as a blind or visually-impaired individual when it's appropriate, and as a last resort, frequently requires months of wrangling if it's a change for a single user. And heaven knows, I've never known of a single instance where accessibility issues resulted in a tectonic shift (though often it would be to the benefit of a lot more people than only those using screen readers).

While I'd love to believe it would be possible to get consistency across organizations and across time, my personal history indicates "never gonna happen" being the likely outcome.

I truly hope that this was a gremlin of some sort that has now been banished by who-knows-what!

 

[Sky-Knight]

@britechguy The setting I indicated isn't a user facing setting... it's controlled by the tenant admin. And again, if you're not in that enterprise channel... bad things happen.

Like QB can't email anymore... or insert LOB here is now broken at random bad times. You know how Mr. Murphy works... it's always at thew worst possible time.

So typically, such a suggestion is incredibly well received. Which is why I suggested it, because while you don't control those tenants, making people aware that they do have control over how frequently they get M365 updates! And it's a simple switch that's actually more granular and easier to deal with than Windows Updates are! It benefits everyone when the frequency slows down. I have mine set to Monthly, as any of my Teams heavy clients as well. Because they get new toys monthly. But if they're LOB heavy... semi-annual it is. Just depends on the client's needs.

But yeah, there won't be any consistency because there's no consistency of competence among those of us that do the support. The magic switch I just talked about didn't actually exist early on in M365 days... You had to control update frequency with the installation script used to deploy the client apps themselves! We didn't get the lovely org settings section in M365 until MUCH later. And even now there are a ton of us that have never bothered to look through there to see what they might want to change.

So defaults abound... even when they're terrible. And when MS is throwing changes out weekly... who can keep up? Even the best of us are getting left behind by this pace.

And I do apologize again I should have suggested a reboot, because Outlook + Sept's update rollup for Win10 DOES cause gremlins... weird ones. Mine all cleared with the necessary reboot, but still... that's a thing too.

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight,

May I quote your posts, with attribution, of course, and direct links back to them on the Microsoft Office Accessibility Discussion Group?

I believe your suggestions have huge merit, and they definitely can have a positive impact on minimizing "unexpected changes." I can't see rewriting them, but I also know that accessing the links (solely) may not be easy for some who read that list and having the direct quotations of material could prove helpful.

 

[Porthos]

and direct links back to them on the Microsoft Office Accessibility Discussion Group?

I would not as it can bring unwanted end users to the forum.

 

[britechguy]

I would not as it can bring unwanted end users to the forum.

In this specific case, that probability is virtually zero. There are very few in the blind and low-vision communities who participate in forums because, as a general thing, forums software is difficult to navigate even if it is, strictly speaking, accessible. E-mailing lists still reign supreme in that culture.

I don't have to give links, though, but I always tend to include them so that source material can be verified. And any time I make reference to Technibble outside Technibble I include a proviso similar to, "a forum dedicated strictly to professional computer technicians." But I do make references elsewhere to here, as there is much that non-technicians can learn. The site itself, other than the "Technician Eyes Only" forum, is publicly accessible and, I believe, gets crawled by web search engines as well.

I don't consider this site off limits to non-professional readership, just non-professional participation. There's a lot of information shared here that's helpful to those who are not technicians.

 

[britechguy]

LOB

This is another acronym that, even after time to tumble about in the ol' cranium, is just not coming up with anything.

Explanation, please?