"New Outlook" breaks xtra email addresses for users with Microsoft account under same @xtra name

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › "New Outlook" breaks xtra email addresses for users with Microsoft account under same @xtra name

broozm

48 posts

Geek

ID Verified

#311067 11-Dec-2023 15:55

Users ring up and have empty inboxes, sent items, everything is gone...

I've struck this a few times now, and it appears that this is what is happening:

IF a user has a personal (free or paid) Microsoft account with the same userid as is their xtra email address, then their [new] Outlook loads up the Microsoft email box - and so shows a blank or nearly blank (empty) mailbox!

The xtra mail is still there on webmail, but the PST the user had in their roaming profile appears to have been replaced or superceded by a new (empty) 256kb pst!

A lot of POP users are going to missing a lot of email if this is the case.

Can anyone confirm?

To resolve, an alias needs to be created in their Microsoft account, newname@outlook.co.nz, then make the this the main username, then DELETE the old alias (the user@xtra.co.nz)

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#3170769 11-Dec-2023 16:37

Telling users to disassociate their Microsoft Account from their primary email address IMO isn't a good solution. Personally, I'd be telling affected users to disable the new Outlook, and warning everyone else to not enable it.

By the way, that's not the only problem with the new Outlook. Turns out to use it with non-Microsoft email addresses, it adds the email account to their web client, and does the IMAP syncing there: Microsoft's new Outlook client quietly moves your email to the cloud

broozm

48 posts

Geek

ID Verified

#3173902 20-Dec-2023 22:24

It's not their primary email they are renaming, it's the login (because if they have a work address with the same name), then that work address will be where the email is going to already.

For example let's say you've been given the work email jakethepeg@myplaceofwork.com

Then at some point you setup a personal Microsoft (same applies in googleland) account and you are prompted for your current email address, you use this work one, it will create it and you now have the private Microsoft account with that login name. But email already goes to the work account under that email address.

(Try sending from the personal email account in this situation and it comes from some random outlook.~vcbaiwef273f@outlook.com address)

This is when you rename your primary alias as described - and also explained here.. or am I missing something?

https://www.bruceb.com/2018/12/microsoft-has-not-made-any-progress-on-sorting-out-its-personal-and-work-accounts/