Outlook 365 - What's all this?!

[callthatgirl]

The problem being, in the real world, one often doesn't have the luxury of picking the order of account setup

This is the money shot then. When clients call with issues, they have IMAP default, Exchange 2nd....just take down all the notes from the accounts, backup the TCO cal/contacts and make a new profile with Exchange first. Then clean up everything, works so much better.

this is a good time to upsell to Exchange too. So many IMAP users don't know they can migrate to Exchange.

 

[Markverhyden]

@britechguy you said this is M365. Is the gmail mentioned in the OP the email account used to manage this particular M365 sub?

 

[britechguy]

@Markverhyden

Yes, my Gmail address is also my login ID to Microsoft.com in this case, but that doesn't tie my Google IMAP access into my outlook.com Exchange access in any way, or it shouldn't.

One of the things that I have the hardest time teaching clients is that although email addresses can be (and these days, often are) used as login IDs for multiple services, from multiple providers, the accounts for those multiple providers are completely disjoint from each other. My Microsoft account uses my gmail address as its login ID, but it's not connected to my Google Account, and vice versa.

 

[jflitney]

Microsoft has made changes to M365 services that leave anyone below the premium subscription level HILARIOUSLY insecure, and you think the new Electron based Outlook app is going to support IMAP?

I repeat, the only IMAP Microsoft is interested in supporting is the hacked up variant that lets Outlook connect to a GMail box. Anything that happens to work beyond that isn't supported, it's an accident.

Now you can continue to reject this reality, but you will also continue to have problems. Outlook is an Exchange client, period... full stop. That's what it does, that's what it's always been. Everything beyond that is barely supported if at all, and Microsoft has shown no evidence they're going to change course on this. They've had decades to to do, and they haven't.

Go play with the new Outlook yourself if you want. You'll see the truth laid out before you. Though, it might just solve your immediate problem. While creating new ones...

You see, the NEW Outlook, doesn't have an OST anymore. It's an Electron app, which means it's just a copy of Chromium with Outlook paint on top. It gives you ZIP, ZERO, NADA when it's offline. It's just a browser! No more *ST files, just MS Teams, painted Blue.

So, like Teams, will it be moving from Electron to Edge WebView2 ?

 

[phaZed]

It's all down again - becoming a monthly ordeal:

Microsoft 365 is down, stopping people from opening Office, Outlook, and OneDrive​

Microsoft 365 was down, stopping people from opening Office, Outlook, and OneDrive (Update)

A Microsoft 365 outage could cause a stressful start to your workday.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

THIS cracked me up from above link....oooo..."down..for several people!" LMAO!
We haven't had one...single...call..yet. Almost 200 businesses running on 365...including ourselves.
And we're doing 2x migrations today to 365....installing Office...opening Office apps...working very heavily in OneDrive....haven't seen so much as a mouses fart yet.

 

[phaZed]

Was down for a Church I manage, today (All 12 machines)(AzureAD)... but working fine for me at the office, the Office Suite. (Though, I don't use Outlook or OneDrive).

Got a call from a repeat customer that has their Office via a company (AzureAD) that has the described symptoms... but I've scheduled them for tomorrow at 2PM for remote support - hopefully it's cleared up by then.

I have at least 13 machines down.

 

[Sky-Knight]

So, like Teams, will it be moving from Electron to Edge WebView2 ?

No, Outlook is moving from the old traditional app to an Electron app.

@phaZed Funny, I was literally in Teams meetings from 8am to 3pm AZ time today. Several of these meetings were inclusive of people in the UK and in India at the same time. AND My day also revolves around SharePoint / Onedrive. Not a bloody hiccup. The time period in question, being in the middle of that mass in the curve there.

My service desk? Yeah... they were bored today too. We've got customers literally all over the world!

I'm thinking, someone lied...

Now we did have issues communicating with an office out in Michigan this afternoon... Splashtop was worthless, and we had to fall back to the DattoRMM's web view to get at some laptops, and things were really sluggish. So I'm thinking an ISP out there somewhere was having a BGP problem.

That's not "down", not even close. Whomever wrote this article is a moron.

My vote is on Downdetector's "reported outages" coming from idiots that forgot out to login over the holiday weekend... THAT I'd believe!

 

[jflitney]

No, Outlook is moving from the old traditional app to an Electron app.

@phaZed Funny, I was literally in Teams meetings from 8am to 3pm AZ time today. Several of these meetings were inclusive of people in the UK and in India at the same time. AND My day also revolves around SharePoint / Onedrive. Not a bloody hiccup. The time period in question, being in the middle of that mass in the curve there.

My service desk? Yeah... they were bored today too. We've got customers literally all over the world!

I'm thinking, someone lied...

Now we did have issues communicating with an office out in Michigan this afternoon... Splashtop was worthless, and we had to fall back to the DattoRMM's web view to get at some laptops, and things were really sluggish. So I'm thinking an ISP out there somewhere was having a BGP problem.

That's not "down", not even close. Whomever wrote this article is a moron.

My vote is on Downdetector's "reported outages" coming from idiots that forgot out to login over the holiday weekend... THAT I'd believe!

Microsoft is Finally Ditching Electron

Microsoft might have hit a wall with Teams on Electron

blog.devgenius.io

 

[Sky-Knight]

Microsoft is Finally Ditching Electron

Microsoft might have hit a wall with Teams on Electron

blog.devgenius.io

You realize that's a difference without much distinction right? WebView2 is just running the Teams applet on top of New Edge instead of Chromium.

They're not doing this for performance, they're doing this because they need the ability to spy on the usage sufficiently enough to get ChatGPT into the mix, they call it Copilot.

But yes, I do need to update my brain, because eventually it won't be Electron, but it is today... and the new Outlook app that's on the horizon is also Electron today.

 

[britechguy]

Let's just say I am getting less and less and less impressed with Outlook 365. I nuked the one and only profile I had the other day and just a few minutes ago thought I'd try setting things up again in the order @callthatgirl recommended: The Outlook.com account first followed by the Gmail account using IMAP.

When I fired up Outlook 365, it had me create a profile, fine, then it went searching for accounts and showed my Gmail account as the first it found. Well, says I, I'm not going to go through adding this one first, but will type in the Outlook.com address and set it up first. So that goes fine. Then, afterward, I try adding the Gmail address, and get this:



As you can clearly see from the folder tree (which again has the bizarre outlook_ address showing rather than what shows if you send mail) that account absolutely, positively has not already been added.

Then, after exiting Outlook entirely, with that Outlook.com account being the only one that has been added, and firing up Outlook again I get this:



I'm sorry, Microsoft, but if you can't connect to your own *%)##)* outlook.com server when that's the one and only thing that's been added as an email account . . .

Even if it needed a password again, then ask me for it, but it isn't and doesn't. That's followed by the very same "System resources critically low" and "Cannot start Outlook" warnings I gave screenshots of at the outset of this topic.

Someone's screwed the pooch, and that someone ain't me!

 

[britechguy]

So, in response to @Markverhyden's observation about the Outlook.com address I had been trying being affiliated with my existing Microsoft Account, I decided to create a new one. Well, all goes well up through giving them my birthdate, then this comes up:



How, I ask, do you want me to "Help you beat the robots?" I have no option to move forward, and moving back takes me back to were I have to supply my birthdate.

Even starting the process over, from scratch (and using Firefox) ends at this same dead end. Let's see if edge does any better.

 

[britechguy]

And in Edge (in an In Private window) I do make it through to the "robot beater:"



And the next screen is one of those where you rotate one figure to match the direction a hand is pointing in another.

Microsoft is not doing itself any favors by not having this process work smoothly in Firefox.

 

[callthatgirl]

@britechguy I didn't read this whole post but I will tell you that the account you have is from the old server that broke in 2017. It has the long extenstion outlook_bunchofnumbersandletters. I have a blog about it. https://callthatgirl.biz/outlook-exchange-connects-with-long-letters-and-numbers/

You will need to add it as IMAP, then export all your email and then figure out a new account. It's broke and most likely won't work in Outlook.

 

[britechguy]

@callthatgirl,

Thanks for that info, but I was using that account only because it already existed. What's funny is that if I send from it the address bitbucket120@outlook.com is shown as the From: address, which is exactly what I expect.

I created an entirely new Outlook.com account and then, for the fun of it, went through configuring a new Outlook profile and allowing the Gmail account using IMAP to be set up first (BTW, that's what Outlook itself is identifying as an account it finds, first) then following it up with adding the new Outlook.com account which uses Exchange. Other than getting a message to the effect, "we're rearranging where your email messages are stored," when that account is being initialized, everything is working just fine at the moment.

I wanted to do it this way so I could determine whether it would immediately break, again, let me get away with this for some period of time then break, or just chug merrily along forever.

I will never be using the new Outlook.com address for any reason other than testing, and the Gmail address, since it uses IMAP, can be nuked and re-created in any email client or clients with zero negative effects.

The only reason I have any email clients configured is because so many blind clients use them because they remain more constant than many webmail interfaces historically have. I went over to webmail entirely, myself, many years ago.