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Mailboxes - Test E-mail AutoConfiguration

Technical Level : Basic

Summary
What is Test E-mail AutoConfiguration?

Test E-mail AutoConfiguration is an Outlook client tool that helps to determine whether Outlook can connect to the Autodiscover service.


Details

How to run it?

  • Start Outlook.
  • Press and hold the Ctrl key, right-click the Outlook icon in the notification area, and then click Test E-mail AutoConfiguration.

  • Verify that the correct email address is in the E-mail Address box.
  • In the Test E-mail AutoConfiguration window, click to clear the Use Guessmart check box and the Secure Guessmart Authenticaton check box.
  • Click to select the Use AutoDiscover check box, and then click Test.

How to verify the results?

Make sure that this test is successful and that Outlook can retrieve the correct URLs for the Availability service. Successful results resemble those that are shown in the following screen shot.

You can copy the results from here and paste them in a .txt file in case you would like to review the results at a later time.

If this test isn't successful, the local computer may be unable to connect to the Autodiscover service. The following are some common reasons that may cause this issue:

    1. A local firewall blocks Outlook from connecting to the Autodiscover service.
    2. Outlook may not be running the latest updates.
    3. Local Autodiscover-related registry data may be present.

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A couple of additional things to help others that may find this post.

Sometimes the desire is to get AutoDiscover info for a mailbox different than your own, or when the domain of your address is in use locally already (like testing Office 365).

In the first case, consider if you are logged on as *** Email address is removed for privacy ***.  However, the desire is to get/test *** Email address is removed for privacy ***.

Obviously the password for 'this.user' won't normally work for 'that.user'.

If you leave the password field blank, you'll be prompted separately for a username/password combination to authenticate the request, in which you can enter the username and password for 'that.user', or an admin account with sufficient rights to query.

The other case that this becomes value is when the email address domain '@domain.com' is already being pointed to a mail server, but one that you don't want to use.  Consider when setting up a new Office 365 environment, but you have not yet switched the primary domain to the cloud (too early as you've just started to setup the tenant).

In this case, '@domain.com' will resolve to the local Exchange server...so how to test the O365 environment?

It's not well know that ANY EMAIL ADDRESS can be used in the AutoDiscover query as long as that address appears in the proxyAddresses (email address list) of a user. 

As such, you can use '*** Email address is removed for privacy ***' in the test, but leave the password blank so you can authenticate with the actual username of the account '*** Email address is removed for privacy ***'.

Lastly, if it is desireable to have more control over the tests, to test AutoDiscover without Outlook installed, or to see more detail, Priasoft's FREE AutoDiscover Testing Tool can help.  It lets one choose the specific outlook version info to send (which determines mapiHTTP support among other things).

The free tool can be found here:  https://www.priasoft.com/autodiscover-testing-tool/

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Outlook 2016 here.  Autodiscover tool returns correct values, but outlook 2016 does not.  It is as if Outlook 2016 is not even looking at the real world DNS and is instead returning an old mx record no longer in use.

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Outlook 2016 caches the AutoDiscover xml file after it receives it correctly the first time.

as long as that cached xml file exists, you'll likely get those values.

look in %userprofile%\appdata\local\microsoft\outlook for the related xml files.

Note that Priasoft Profile Update utility properly handles Outlook cutovers as a result of a migration, in case that is the reason for the struggle.

Regards,

Eriq

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Sort of related question.  Is there any Powershell cmdlet that can get you the results of an AutoDiscover?  When setting up New User Accounts similar to an existing User, it'd be helpful to know that existing User's "AlternativeMailbox" information that's listed under "Test-Email AutoConfiguration's" XML Tab.  Thank you.

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So why can't the results tab be copied? That would be so much more useful.

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outlook may not be running the latest updates

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Auto discovery is telling me my browser is not compatable, yet I am fully upto date with windows 10 and Edge, assuming its something to do with IE11 being switched off.

I also have another account, same domain already using outlook 2016, so its just when I am trying to add another account

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Last updated January 7, 2024 Views 89,646 Applies to: