Microsoft Outlook on a domain PC is unable to connect following upgrade to Office 365

Microsoft Outlook on a domain PC is unable to connect following upgrade to Office 365

When coming from an SBS server to Office 365, domain PCs will sometimes try to connect to the internal Exchange server, rather than Office 365.
This is because the SBS server has an AutoDiscover xml file that domain PCs will look for by default. You can make a regedit change on the PC to ignore this, but if you have many PCs this is not the most efficient way of dealing with the issue.

The easiest way is to remove the AutoDiscover xml file from the server itself. To do this, follow the instructions below.

1. Connect to the SBS server and open MMC (Windows + R, type MMC and press enter).

2. Click File, Add or Remove Snap-in and select ADSI Edit. Click Add and OK to add the snap-in.

3. Right click on ADSI Edit and click connect to. Under Select a well known Naming Context, change the drop down to Configuration and press OK.

4. Double-click the following options: Configuration -> CN=configuration,DC=servername,DC=local -> CN=Services -> CN=Microsoft Exchange -> CN=First Organization -> CN=Administrative Groups -> CN=Exchange Administrative Group -> CN=Servers -> CN=servername -> CN=Protocols -> CN=Autodiscover

5. Delete the file within the Autodiscover folder called CN=servername and class as serviceConnectionPoint, as this is the file that PCs look for.

After removing this file the PCs should search for the Autodiscover record. This record can be on the SBS or an external DNS server. If the PC cannot see the record straight away, run ipconfig /flushdns from command prompt and try again.

Now Outlook will be able to find the Office 365 server and connect to the user’s mailbox.

Now that you know how to resolve the problem when Microsoft Outlook on a domain PC is unable to connect following upgrade to Office 365,  browse our support archive for more useful information.