Volume 22 Issue 30

Today's Highlights:

• Outlook 2016: Home Page tab Missing
• Disable Outlook’s new account wizard
• Outlook 2016 Updates: October 10 2017
• Outlook 2013/2010: October 10 2017 Updates

Outlook 2016: Home Page tab missing

Following the Outlook update released this week, users discovered the Home Page tab is missing from folder Properties. In Outlook 2016, the affected version is Version 1708 Build 8431.2107. Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010 updates also remove the Home Page tab.

What is the Home Page? The best known home page is Outlook Today, but you could display almost any html file instead of the folder's contents. Some third-party software, along with BCM, utilized this feature to display dashboards.  (Not all html pages work well as home pages, since scripts are not supported).

To access the option to set a home page, users right-click on a folder in Outlook and chose Properties then select the Home Page tab.

This capability was removed in the update released this week in the interest of making Outlook more secure. To use a Home Page, you now need to set a registry value.

You can enable home pages using this registry key (replace nn with the version of Outlook) is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\nn.0\Outlook\Security
DWORD: EnableRoamingFolderHomepages
Value: 1

If a Home Page is set on a default folder, you can set the URL in the WebView registry key. This is more secure, as it's only enabled on one folder, but because it only works with the default Outlook folders, it is less useful.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0 Outlook\WebView\[default folder name]
String: URL
Value: http://the-url

More information and ready-to-use registry keys are at Home Page tab is missing.

Disable Outlook’s new account wizard

The newest builds of Outlook 2016 have a new, simplified account dialog. It’s definitely simple and easy to use – type in your email address and wait for Outlook to find the account and ask for your password. It’s a couple more steps if you want to or need to create the account manually – you need to enter your email address, choose manual setup, wait for Outlook to look for the account information then choose the account type you want to create. Honestly, in the end it’s just a prettier version of the old dialog, but some people prefer the older, familiar dialog.

You can turn off this simplified version and revert to the older add account dialog by editing the registry. As always, if the keys don’t exist, you’ll need to create them.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\setup
DWORD: DisableOffice365SimplifiedAccountCreation
Value: 1

Outlook 2016 Updates: October 10 2017

In addition to the previously mentioned problems with Folder Home Pages, the October 10 2017 Outlook update resolves vulnerabilities that could allow remote code “if a user opens a specially crafted file”. It also resolves the following issues.

• Outlook will not connect with MAPI/HTTP if certain HTTP headers are received by the client with unexpected type casing.
• Users occasionally experience an error when trying to access the address book.
• Opening a recurring meeting with exceptions may delete the meeting details.
• An Add-in (web extension) returns an incorrect Exchange Web Services (EWS) URL if the internal and external EWS URLs are different.
• After sending an email message through an IMAP account, the message appears in the Drafts folder again.
• When you forward or reply to an HTML email message that contains images, one or more attachments or inline images may be lost.
• Outlook.com email messages show the winmail.dat files as attachments.
• The Apps for Office button are no longer visible on the compose form if there are no legacy compose add-ins enabled.
• When you open a recurring meeting that has exceptions in Online mode, the meeting body may be blank.
• Updates the holiday information in the Outlook holiday file (Outlook.HOL) for Malaysia, Russia, Trinidad, and Tobago. After installing the update, delete the old holiday events by grouping by Category then go to File, Options, Calendar, Add Holidays to add the updated holidays back into Outlook’s Calendar.
• Improves some translations for the Russian 32-bit version of Outlook 2016.

For more information, see Description of the security update for Outlook 2016: October 10, 2017

Outlook 2013/2010: October 10 2017 Updates

The Outlook 2013 update this month addresses a few of the same issues fixed in Outlook 2016 (plus the security vulnerabilities), while Outlook 2010's update doesn't list any specific issues in addition to the security vulnerabilities.

As with all updates for Outlook 2013 and 2016, the updates are installed for most users (click-to-run) automatically.

• Using the Select All button to select all items in the Recover Deleted Items dialog box in a non-English version of Outlook 2013, nothing is selected.
• Outlook will not connect using MAPI/HTTP if certain HTTP headers are received by the client that have unexpected type casing.
• When you try to connect to the address book after a Microsoft Exchange failover, you receive the following error message: The Connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable.ge content goes here.
• You experience an error occasionally when you try to access the address book.
• When you change the location of a meeting and select to update the location automatically, the displayed location isn't updated for the meeting.
• Improved translation for the Russian 32-bit version of Outlook 2013.

For more information, see
Description of the security update for Outlook 2013: October 10, 2017
Description of the security update for Outlook 2010: October 10, 2017

New & Updated Exchange KB Articles

You can't connect to Skype for Business Online, or certain features don't work, because an on-premises firewall blocks the connection
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2409256

You can't access OWA or ECP after you install Exchange Server 2016 CU6
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4036163

New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles

Description of the Activity-Based Authentication Timeout for OWA in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3080005

Full Access permissions are not working after a migration to Office 365 dedicated/ITAR (vNext)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4046318

Information about profile picture synchronization in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3185286

October 2017 Office Update Release
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4043461

New & Updated Outlook KB Articles

Description of the security update for Outlook 2016: October 10, 2017
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4011162

Outlook 2016 for Mac crashes when a Proxy Auto Configuration file is used
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4042151

You receive a corrupted attachment if email is sent from Outlook that connects to Exchange Server in cache mode
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4040121

Other Resources

Start Outlook using a different VBA Project file
How to start Microsoft Outlook using a different VBA Project file.

Tutorial: Set up Outlook.com account to sync Calendar and Contacts
Step by step tutorial to add an Outlook.com account (and reconfigure settings) to Outlook and use it to sync calendar and contacts.