I don’t know what is going on in Redmond, but this is getting to be ridiculous!

I was working on a PC which the user had Windows Mail as their E-mail client. He’s always dismissed the prompts to switch to the ‘New Outlook’. That said, sadly, after a recent update he found himself with the ‘New Outlook’ as his e-mail client.

Now, I’ve seen, in the past, a button was available to revert back to your prior application, but nope, not in this case, no slider button appeared. He had no choice, Microsoft unilaterally imposed the ‘New Outlook’!

Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he finds out that the New Outlook isn’t functional.

Case and point, it won’t load half the time and all he gets is:

and even when he does get it to load, the Search function does not work, ever!

The search errors have been going on for days now, so it’s not a sporadic issue making it completely impossible for him to retrieve e-mails, find stored informations…

So, I don’t know what is going on in Redmond, but this is just plain unacceptable. To replace people’s software without their consent with another product that simply does not work. You’re messing with people’s livelihood.

• How does such shotty software make it out into the wild?
• Do you not test your products at all?
• Do you not have any respect for your clients and users?

Hey Microsoft, is this the only way, by forcing the product onto people’s PCs without their consent, that you can get the product adopted! What a horrible business model and what a horrible way to treat your end-users.

Of all the applications to mess with, people’s e-mail client. This is probably the most critical app any person uses and this is what you offer as a user experience.

How can you impose an application on people when the basic search functionality doesn’t work!

For now, my only recourse was to switch him over to Mozilla Thunderbird. I will take a bit to get used to, but it is reliable and Mozilla, unlike Microsoft, will not impose changes on their users and replace software.

And, I won’t even bring up the fact that the ‘New Outlook’ doesn’t support automation. Yep, no VBA whatsoever! Breaking probably millions, no 10’s, no 100’s of millions of applications (and I don’t think I’m exaggerating as e-mail is integrated in to many Access, Excel, Word, …, c++, .net, … tools, I have Outlook automation integrated in a PHP web app I created. It’s everywhere.).

On a side note, people talk about support, where do I get Microsoft support for this? Nowhere. Microsoft offers no support for these issues. We are left to waste hours trying this and that, surfing the web looking for answers. Their website only offers a useless chat bot that makes you go in circles and never actually helps you resolve any issues.

Looking For A Way To Revert Back To The 'Classic Outlook'

If you’re looking for a way to get back the old e-mail client ‘Classic Outlook’, Windows Mail,.. after Microsoft imposed the ‘New Outlook’ on you, then you may like to take a look at:

Reverting Back From the 'New Outlook'

If you didn’t see my last post: I’ve been trying to help a client upon which Microsoft imposed the ‘New Outlook’. Now, I did end up setting them up on Mozilla Thunderbird.  It’s a really solid e-mail client, one that I’ve set up for various clients for years now which can do the typical Outlook stuff (E-mail, Contacts, …). That said, I kept digging because, in the past with other clients, I had always managed to revert back to Outlook (or as Microsoft is now labeling it ‘Classic Outlook’).