Volume 28 Issue 8

Issue Date: March 23, 2023 « Previous Issue | Next Issue »

The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on March 23, 2023.

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Today's Highlights »

Exchange Online: Blocking Old & Unpatched Exchange Servers
Disable shortcut keys in Outlook
Outlook's Left Navigation Rail

Exchange Online: Blocking Old & Unpatched Exchange Servers

Microsoft's big announcement this week: to increase the security of Microsoft 365 Exchange Online users, Microsoft is going to start throttling and blocking email from vulnerable on-premise Exchange Servers. "Vulnerable" is any Exchange server that unpatched or out of support. To start, they will apply the policy to Exchange 2007 server, eventually including Exchange 2010 and later, Exchange 2013. The older servers need to be decommissioned, while currently supported servers will need to have current patches installed.

If a server remains unpatched, Exchange Online will throttle messages from it, resulting in delayed delivery. If the server admin does not patch the server within 30 days after throttling begins, Microsoft will block the server, issuing a permanent SMTP 550 error to the sender, which triggers a non-delivery report (NDR) to the sender and the sender will need to re-send the message.

See Microsoft's article on the specifics and multiple steps they will take before before rejecting mail from the unsupported or unpatched servers.
Throttling and Blocking Email from Persistently Vulnerable Exchange Servers to Exchange Online - Microsoft Community Hub

Microsoft is hosting an “Ask Microsoft Anything” (AMA) on May 10, 2023 at 9am PST to answer administrator's questions about these changes.

Disable shortcut keys in Outlook

A user had a problem: he hits a combination of keystrokes and accidently deletes contacts. He asked how to get a warning before deleting the contact.

Outlook's option to "Prompt for confirmation before permanently deleting items" only works when you are permanently deleting items, either by using the Shift + Delete key or emptying the Deleted Items folder. (This option is in File > Options > Advanced – at the bottom, the first option in the Other section.)

While it is possible to use a VBA macro to warn before deleting a Contact, another option is disabling the shortcut keys that are causing the problem. In this case: Ctrl + D. This will disable the shortcut in all of Outlook, not just in Contacts, but if you use the Trash icon or Delete key to delete, you probably don't use Ctrl + D. (The user who was accidently deleting contacts did not know about that shortcut.)

To disable keyboard shortcuts, you need to add this registry key (if the keys don't exist, you need to create them.)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Policies > Microsoft > office > 16.0 > outlook > disabledshortcutkeyslist
Each shortcut you disable with have a KeyMod#, the first one will be KeyMod1:

String value: KeyMod1
Value: 68,8 (For Ctrl+D – D=68, Ctrl=8)

A list of key codes is here (applies to all versions): Values for shortcut keys and modifiers in Office

To disable command buttons, see Use Group Policy to disable commands

Outlook's Left Navigation Rail

Reminder: if you don't like the vertical navigation rail you can change an option to move the navigation buttons to the bottom.

The option to "snooze" the vertical navigation rail was added to build 2211 and is in File > Options > Advanced. Uncheck the option to Show apps in Outlook then restart Outlook to move the buttons back to the bottom.

It will be some time before this option is removed and the vertical rail is permanent... but to have your voice heard and hopefully, make this option permanent, please vote for and comment on this suggestion. Navigation bar chnge

Administrators can set the navigation buttons to the bottom for their users using a logon script.

To change the default, use this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Office > 16.0 > Outlook > Preferences

To prevent users from changing the option, use the policies key (this will not disable the Show apps in Outlook checkbox, but Outlook will always use the value in the policies key):
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Policies > Microsoft > office > 16.0 > outlook > preferences

For either registry key, use
DWORD: EnableAppsInOutlook
Value: 0 (Off) or 1 (On)