New Outlook set for GA despite missing some key features The new Microsoft Outlook will hit General Availability on August 1, and Microsoft is not backing down on the move away from COM (Component Object Model) add-ins. Moving on from COM... Outlook add-ins are programs that run within Outlook and extend what the application can do - perhaps integrating with some other corporate …
The bug is in the client:
“ A major trouble spot is Exchange Server: Microsoft has not announced any plans to support it with new Outlook”
Current Outlook (2019/365 desktop install) has problems when you have both an on-prem Exchange server and a 365 tenancy.
Many have reported that Outlook had problems connecting with the pre-existing on-prem exchange server once the user had an “OnMicrosoft” account as Outlook tried to connect with a non-existing Exchange 365 server… Encountered this problem myself when working away from the office network on which the exchange server resided, so did a Google…
So it seems MS have no intention of fixing Outlook and the way it connects with a remote on-prem Exchange Server.
It's almost as though Microsoft wants to kill off on-premises software entirely. Surely they wouldn't put their monthly subscriber income above customer's needs though. Making it harder and harder to stay on-premises by making the products worse and worse would be the actions of a passive-agressive tyrant.
Microsoft is going after the SMB (small-to-medium business) market, which cares not for running anything on-premises, no matter how much honest/decent advice their IT teams give them. It's easier for those businesses to shove their stuff on to per-user (OneDrive) and per-department (Teams) SharePoint sites with simple security controls and a simple way to shift data as when employees join/leave than it is to run SMB (the other kind, Server Message Block) servers containing redirected folders made available over corporate VPNs.
You should state the country you live in, but we can guess which water-isolated bubble, with only one actual border to the south and a friendly neighbour border to the north, you are from - even though it accounts for more than 4% of world population. In comparison: My country is somewhere around the 1% mark, whether slightly above or below is a different discussion.
Not sure about other businesses, but anything dealing with finances and trading might beg to differ. They are heavily relying on arcane add-ins that they can't live without, some of them quite old. The more expensive - the older the interface.
So far the impact of New Outlook on most IT people I know is the extra workload needed to keep users away from it, as it will sneak every chance it gets.
Well, that's the problem, isn't it! Finance is the giant glacier that moves at a snail's pace with a steadfast resistance to any kind of change. COM add-in as not secure! Management needs to push the Finance departments to make the change and customer need to push venders to develop solutions to get rid of this old and insecure method.
No Calendar Scrolling - Screen Size issues - Shared Mailbox Issues to mention but a few of the reasons I keep having to go back to 'Classic' Outlook
Now that antitrust has blocked the 'one ring to rule them all' Teams client (for now) Outlook has a reprieve in its evenual culling (despite what its customers actually want). I've tried several times to reset my brain and give New Outlook a chance, but always run into a functionality roadblock really quickly and have to go back. Funnily enough the 'New Teams' client was actually much better than the 'Classic' one from my perspective! I know the whole one development for web and desktop idea will save MS a load of development cash, but when the functionality just isn't there, why take all your functional advantages over say gmail and unwind them into a generic web-client??
I know that MS has also traditionally 'borrowed' from Apple in the past, but the whole idea of 'we know better than you how you should work' was also a big reason why Apple is niche rather than mainstream.
With my old OSS/Linux hat on, I should be delighted but my battle-hardened 'I've enough work to be doing leaving VMware behind to be shifting off MS too' work face would much prefer that they stay the right side of 'its not worth moving off it'.
Yep, I've dropped an email to corrections@
The once I did try new Outlook it failed to transfer my email accounts across and I went straight back. They might have fixed that now but they really shouldn't be releasing it to "try" if such basic functionality isn't working. I suppose I'll give it another look on a VM so I don't screw up my system again.
Okay, you can blame Ballmer for his genius strike to hire "Mr. Windows NT" Dave Cutler, who managed to lay a modern object oriented foundation in contrast to UNIX/POSIX "everything is a file" and "Pipes must be ascii". After 32 years you can still run many NT 3.5 programs in Windows 11 - they just work, as long as they are true NT programs and somewhat clean written. The UI is a different topic, and the decision to run printer drivers and gfx drivers directly in the kernel with NT 4.0 - I don't know who, in the end, decided that with the known result.
Incredible. A company is pushing a product that isn't even finished.
Because it can.
I would make a statement about shooting squads and sheds, but it might seem a tad extreme. Except that, when I get a customer contract, I don't have the liberty of spending the time dilly-dallying and, when delivery comes around, saying "oh, I'll do that later".
If I tried to pull a stunt like that, it would be the end of my reputation and career.
But Redmond does it all the time, and it's still in business.
Go figure . . .
With something as key as an email client, this is akin to Emperor Elon 'I have no clothes' Musk saying
"You will love this new Tesla. Due to production issues, we are shipping them to our valued customers with only three wheels"
We don't know when the 4th wheel will become available but we are sure that it will be by the end of 2025.
Sorry MS, you have lost the plot again.
I'm so glad that I moved my own email to Thunderbird in 2007. Since then I'm moved the email structure from Windows to MacOS and now Linux and not had issues with old emails or getting new ones.
There is life outside of Microsoft where you are always the Beta Tester.
There are so many bits of shite in the new Outlook that we've declared it an unsupported product and configuration. Problem booking a room and using new Outlook? Tough. Problem editing a recurring meeting and using the new Outlook? Tough. Can't see multiple mailboxes and using the new Outlook? Tough. Can't see all the shared calendars that have been carefully shared for staff and using the new Outlook? Tough... and so on...
If I understand this correctly. Classic Outlook is being replaced by basically a web page.
Someone who has five separate mailboxes in their copy of Outlook will now have to open five separate web pages?
How do you move mail between mailboxes? That was a simple drag and drop operation in old Outlook.
And how do you archive a mailbox when it gets too big?
If my client moves from Mail Supplier A to Mail Supplier B this is easy in current Outlook as he just opens both mailboxes in Outlook and drags mail and folders across. How does that get done with separate windows and no offline backup option?
Do these decision makers even use email?
Yes but not just any web page, this is an MS web page... Takes forever to load, stuffs ads all over the place and the UI keeps changing.
Oh BTW, I've a sneaking suspicion that an unnamed MS "AI" is reading the last entry in my hotmail inbox and providing targeted ads based on the content and when it cant find a suitable ad, it makes one up. Received an email about death and ghosts and the "ad" that appeared was a coffin on some grass. Spooky!
Wait wait wait.
I was told @work that the new Outlook contains that awesome, absolutely essential feature:
AI
I did complain that it does not contain that totally outmoded feature, namely the possibility to modify the columns displayed in the list of emails (which, well, does make an important part of my job much easier and reliable).
But...
AI!!!!!11!!!11!?!!!!!
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