Volume 27 Issue 5

Today's Highlights

• New Mail Notifications
• "The attempted operation failed. An object could not be found" Error
• Still using smtp.live.com?
• Force the Classic Ribbon in Outlook

New Mail Notifications

A few users complained recently that Outlook is not displaying a new mail notification when it’s closed. This is expected behavior with Outlook – Outlook needs to be running to check for new mail and display the new mail notification (and display reminders).

If Outlook doesn’t close properly, it may be running in a partially closed, hidden state, you will get notifications because Outlook isn’t closed.

I don’t recommend doing anything to force Outlook into a half-closed hidden state since it may not open when you want read your mail, you can set Outlook to hide when minimized if you don’t want to see Outlook on the Task Bar.

This setting removes the Outlook icon from the Task bar but leaves Outlook running in the background. To reopen it, right-click on the Outlook icon in the Taskbar corner notification area and choose Open Outlook.

To enable hide when minimized, right click on the Outlook icon in the Taskbar corner notification area and choose “Hide When Minimized”. I recommend having the Outlook icon visible in the Taskbar corner, not in the overflow area, so it’s easier to see if Outlook is running and one less click to reopen the window. If you open Outlook using a desktop shortcut, you might end up having multiple Outlook windows open (but minimized and hidden), unless you add the /Recycle switch to the shortcut.

For calendar notifications from Microsoft Exchange accounts (including Outlook.com), I add the account to the Windows Mail & Calendar app. While I usually have Outlook open 24/7, the appointment notifications from the Mail & Calendar app are large and harder to miss, which means fewer missed meetings.

"The attempted operation failed. An object could not be found" Error

I had several users with this error over the last few days. The users reported their email stopped working – they couldn’t receive email and when they tried to send a message, they receive his message: "The attempted operation failed. An object could not be found". All the users I spoke to were using POP or IMAP accounts.

When it happened to a client, I took a look at her profile. She uses POP accounts, so I checked the delivery folder locations for the email accounts in Account Settings. When I selected each POP account, the folder path was missing. After fixing the missing delivery locations, Outlook still wouldn't send and receive mail. I then checked the Address Books tab in the Account Settings dialog. It should have at least one entry, for Outlook Address Book, but was blank.

When the address book service is missing from profile, it means the profile is corrupt. The solution is a new profile as the address book service can’t be added manually.

Still using smtp.live.com?

While it is better to use auto account setup to add Outlook.com accounts to Outlook as Microsoft Exchange accounts, older versions of Outlook and other clients will need to POP or IMAP protocol. Over the last few days, I’ve seen a number of users report that they can no longer send email using the Microsoft server they’ve used for years – smtp.live.com.

I’m waiting for confirmation that the older server names are being decommissioned, but even if it’s just a temporary bug, you should use the server names in your Outlook.com account settings.

In every account (personal and business) I’ve checked, the servers are outlook.office365.com for incoming mail and smtp.office365.com for outgoing:

POP server name:
outlook.office365.com
Port: 995 / TLS

IMAP server name:
outlook.office365.com
Port: 993 / TLS

SMTP server name:
smtp.office365.com
Port: 587 / STARTTLS

To verify the server names for your account, log into Outlook on the web and open Settings (gear icon) > View all Outlook settings > Sync Email. The server names, ports, and encryption settings are listed on that page.