The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on February 9, 2017.
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Today's Highlights:
- Outlook.com Sync Failure
- Add Additional Addresses to Room Mailboxes
- Remove the Birthday Calendar
- Contest Winners
Outlook.com Sync Failure
I've had a lot of complaints this week from users who said Outlook.com stopped syncing in Outlook. One told me he received an email from Microsoft telling him to reconnect. So he did… using manual setup to add it back as an ActiveSync account. Another user tried to add the account using Outlook Connector.
In both cases, the users received error messages because those account types no longer work with Outlook. The Outlook Connector ceased working when the account was migrated to the new servers. Exchange ActiveSync no longer works in Outlook 2013 and 2016 as Outlook desktop was blocked as an ActiveSync client for Outlook.com. Outlook connecting using ActiveSync was always blocked on the business side and in on-prem Exchange servers but allowed in Outlook.com, to make the migration seamless for end users. With the migration all but finished, EAS support for Outlook desktop was disabled.
The only way to connect Outlook to Outlook.com accounts going forward is by using auto account setup to add the account as an Exchange account. (POP and IMAP are also supported, but do not sync calendar & contacts). If you are using an address that is not owned by Microsoft to log into Outlook.com, you will need to create an Outlook.com alias then use that to log into Outlook desktop.
Add Additional Addresses to Room Mailboxes
An Office 365 administrator wanted to change the email address on some room mailboxes.
The powers that be want to change the display names and email addresses of our conference rooms. I tried to make the change, but the Office 365 admin interface shows me that the account does not have the ability to add a secondary email address as it doesn't have an Exchange Online license.
It sounds like you are trying to make this change from the main Office 365 Admin portal. You need to edit the room mailboxes using the Exchange Admin center.
- At the bottom left, expand Admin Centers and click on Exchange.
- In the Exchange Admin Center, click Resources (just below "Welcome" and "recipients").
- Select the room and click the pencil icon to edit, or double click on it.
- Change the email address on the email address tab. For at least the short term, I would keep the old address as a secondary address and set the new one as the default address.
Remove the Birthday Calendar
Both Office 365 and Outlook.com users have a separate Birthday calendar in their mailbox. The server populates the calendar from your contacts, in much the same way that Outlook creates birthday and anniversaries for your contacts, but without adding more noise to your own calendar. Because it's a separate calendar, you can hide or show the events easily.
However, a lot of users don't like the extra calendar, especially when they already have the birthdates on their default calendar, thanks to years of using Outlook. Fortunately, it can be deleted from Outlook, which turns it off in Outlook on the web.
If you want to restore it, you'll need to log into Outlook on the web if you want to enable it again. You can enable it from the Add calendar link in the bar or in Calendar Options, Other Calendars.
If you decide to keep the separate birthday calendar, you'll probably want to delete the birthdays from your own calendar. The easiest way is to search for "birthday" or "'s birthday" then Select All and Delete. Search for "location:country name" if you need to delete Holidays.
In addition to the Birthday calendar, you can add a Holidays calendar and Interesting Calendars. These calendars include TV schedules for shows on US and Canadian networks as well as worldwide sporting events.
Contest Winners
Names were drawn and the Office 365 subscriptions awarded earlier this week.
Office 365 Home: Mark U., Nick M., Richard M, Ray, Rob A, Paul
Office 365 Personal: Rob, Kevin
The winners list is also published at online at Contest Winners.
New & Updated Exchange KB Articles
Free/busy lookups between Office 365 organizations dont work when one Office 365 organization is running a hybrid setup
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3216408
Office Web Apps and Office Online Server supportability in Azure
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3199955
Voice mail settings are missing from the Options pane in Outlook on the web in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3216404
New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles
'Something went wrong 30016-4' error when you try to uninstall Office 365 ProPlus
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3152502
January 10, 2017, update for Microsoft Office
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3214449
New & Updated Outlook KB Articles
Outlook 2016 Implementation of Autodiscover
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3211279
Other Resources
New: Outlook Customer Manager
A replacement for Outlook Business Contact Manager (BCM) is rolling out to Office 365 Business Premium subscribers, beginning with those who have First Release enabled. Customer Manager uses Office 365 services to search your mailbox and store related information.
Outlook.com: Switch Account to Microsoft Exchange Now
Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2016 users who are connecting to their Outlook.com account using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) will need to remove the account from their profile and add it back using auto account setup, EAS accounts will stop working soon.
Add an Alias to an Outlook.com Account
How to create an Outlook.com alias to use to log into Outlook on the desktop when your Microsoft account uses a non-Microsoft email address.