A user was trying out the new Office 2016 and ran into a problem. He wanted to configure his Exchange account manually, by entering the server names, but Outlook 2016 doesn't have that option for Exchange accounts:

I recently upgraded to Office 2016 from Office 2013 and the Exchange account wouldn't work. I deleted it from my profile and went to add it back. However, under "Add Account" there is not an option to set up an Exchange account. There are only two options: 1) Outlook.com or Exchange ActiveSync compatible service or 2) POP or IMAP. The Microsoft Exchange Server service option is missing. Why is it missing and how do I add my Exchange account to my profile?

This is the new Outlook 2016 dialog for manually adding an account.

Exchange accounts can only be added to Outlook 2016 using auto account setup (even with the new dialog, above). If autodiscover records aren't published, your administrator will need to publish them so Outlook can find the account.

This is a change from Outlook 2013. If you want to use Outlook 2016 with an Exchange account, you'll need to let Outlook set the account up automatically.

If you are upgrading from Outlook 2013 and your Exchange account wasn't moved to the new profile, you might be able to restore the old profile. This method does not work 100% of the time, but it takes only minutes to try.

I recommend deleting any Outlook 2016 profiles of the same name or renaming the profile before adding this key to the Outlook 2016 profiles.

1. Right click on the Start button and choose Run.
2. Type regedit in the Open field and click Ok.
3. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Profiles
4. Right click on your profile key and choose Export.
   
5. Find the .reg file you just exported (default location is in Documents)
6. Right click and choose Edit to open it in Notepad.
7. Go to Edit, Replace or press Ctrl + H
8. Find \15.0\ and replace with \16.0\. Find and Replace the profile name if desired.
   
9. Save and close.
10. Double click to run and add it to Outlook 2016's Profiles.

If this is the only profile you have, open Outlook. Otherwise, go to Control panel, find Mail and set Outlook to ask which profile or set this profile as the default.

Do not disable MAPI over HTTPS if you are using Office 365 Exchange Online.

If your Exchange Server does not have MAPI over HTTP enabled, you'll need to set a registry key to disable MAPI over HTTP. This will cause Outlook 2016 to fall back to RPC over HTTP.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange
DWORD: MapiHttpDisabled
Value: 1

If you don't want to edit the registry, you can use this ready-to-use registry file: MapiHttpDisabled

Connection tab is Missing

After the account is automatically configured in Outlook, the connection tab is missing. Why?

It's not needed when you use MAPI over HTTP as Outlook "talks" to the Exchange server over HTTPS.

Autodiscover is slow

If Outlook is slow finding the autodiscover records, you may need to tell Outlook to exclude the root domain or other records.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover\
DWORD: ExcludeHttpsRootDomain
Value: 1

The other records you can exclude, also under the Autodiscover key are as follows. Use a value of 1 to enable, delete the key if you no longer want to exclude these checks.

DWORD: ExcludeScpLookup
DWORD: ExcludeHttpsAutoDiscoverDomain
DWORD: ExcludeHttpRedirect
DWORD: ExcludeSrvRecord

ExcludeAutoDiscover.reg
 

Create a local Autodiscover.XML File

If your company doesn't publish autodiscover in DNS, you can try creating an XML file. Paste this into notepad and save as autodiscover.xml. Don't forget to change the domain in redirecturl. A sample file is here.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/responseschema/2006"> 
  <Response xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschema/2006a"> 
    <Account> 
      <AccountType>email</AccountType> 
      <Action>redirectUrl</Action> 
    <RedirectUrl>https://autodiscover.domain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml</RedirectUrl> 
    </Account> 
  </Response> 
</Autodiscover>

Next, edit the registry to add an autodiscover reference:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover 
REG_SZ: domain.com
Value: C:\path\to\autodiscover.xml

Now try adding your account to your Outlook profile using Auto Account Setup, entering your name, email address and password. If the Exchange server is properly configured, your account will be configured in Outlook automatically. Note: you'll get a redirect warning and may need to supply your username and password twice.

If the Exchange server is not properly configured, you'll need to create an autodiscover.xml containing all of your account information. If you have access to a computer with Outlook 2013 or older, you may be able to use the autodiscover file it used.

Type or paste %localappdata%\microsoft\outlook in the address bar of Windows Explorer to open Explorer to the folder where the autodiscover file is stored. It will be named something like this: 9a2b291a2545a44e9fa74ac13aad98c2 - Autodiscover.xml. Copy it the folder you entered in the registry, delete the previously created autodiscover file and rename the copy to autodiscover.xml. A sample autodiscover.xml for my Office 365 account is here. You can try editing this XML but will need your LegacyDSN.

If this doesn't work, your administrator will need to properly configure the server.