when it's not DNS, it's AI...
Outlook has always been a random disaster. That's a known fact.
That said - for the last year (probably longer), every time I open Outlook, I get a lovely process alongside it called ai.exe -- this little bastard lives in your Office installation folders in both 32 and 64bit locations - and ever since it started appearing - Outlook runs like a dog - eating CPU - going from it's random crashes to more predictable ones (as if that's some form of benchmark, but this is Outlook we're talking about).
I nuke the contents of both AI folders that house this demon - but of course, it gets re-added every single time there's a Windows Update (they don't even have to say "Office Update" anymore). Now there's a scheduled task for deletion - we'll see how long it survives before for MS to start looking for that and disabling it behind my back as well...
PS: Office (and Outlook) doesn't care when it's missing - it returns back to it's "normally unpredictable self" - which is as reliable as it'll ever get - but it's sure not the CPU sucking monster when big brother is missing.
This is a fully licensed on-premise Office 2021 install.
The moral of the story is that everything else has already moved to Linux in one way or another... This is the last one...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
