Microsoft kicks new Outlook opt-out deadline down the road to 2027
- Reference: 1772800865
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/06/microsoft_outlook_migration_postponed/
- Source link:
In a [1]post filed with the Microsoft 365 Message Center at the end of last month, Microsoft said postponement was to "ensure organizations have the time they need to prepare."
"We're extending the opt-out timeline and providing 12 months of lead time as we continue delivering key features and improvements."
[2]
In other words, new Outlook still doesn't do what many enterprises need, and not enough are at a stage in their migration timelines for Microsoft to move to the opt-out phase.
[3]
[4]
As Reg readers know, opt-out is where new Outlook is on by default, but can be turned off. It will automatically bring customers into the new experience. However, users and administrators still have the ability to opt out, and policies that disable or limit access to new Outlook will still apply. The next stage, cutover, will mean users will not be able to switch back to classic Outlook.
While the postponement from next month, April 2026, to March 2027, will be welcomed by organizations that are not where Microsoft needs them to be, the company has not said anything more about the eventual end of support for classic Outlook.
[5]
A recent support document [6]stated : "Existing installations of classic Outlook through perpetual and subscription licensing will continue to be supported until at least 2029."
[7]Users fume at Outlook.com email 'carnage'
[8]Microsoft to auto-launch Copilot in Edge whenever you click a link from Outlook
[9]Microsoft admits Outlook might freeze when saving files to OneDrive
[10]Outlook outage over North America, Microsoft scrambles to respond
Administrators will have "at least 12 months of notice" before the cutover stage is implemented, meaning there is unlikely to be much in the way of additional postponements after March 2027.
Microsoft insisted: "We're seeing strong and accelerating adoption of new Outlook," but pushing back the start of the opt-out phase from April 2026 to March 2027 tells a different story. [11]Microsoft's comparison table for the two incarnations of Outlook shows a number of important features missing from the new version, not least the [12]limited support for Outlook Data Files (.pst).
Since Outlook forms an important part of many organizations' workflows, a reluctance to migrate is understandable, particularly if key features are either missing or do not work in the way that users are accustomed to.
Microsoft has a long history of rolling out new versions of software that lack the features of older editions ( [13]yes, Skype, we're looking at you ), but irritating customers of its cash-cow productivity suite? Better to kick the can down the road for another year. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://mc.merill.net/message/MC949965
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aasIMfarXwg7FsjCV5oqOwAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aasIMfarXwg7FsjCV5oqOwAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aasIMfarXwg7FsjCV5oqOwAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aasIMfarXwg7FsjCV5oqOwAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/outlook/get-started/guide-product-availability
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/users_fume_at_outlookcom_email/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/26/copilot_pane_edge_outlook/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/21/outlook_freeze_onedrive/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/outlook_outage_microsoft/
[11] https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/feature-comparison-between-new-outlook-and-classic-outlook-de453583-1e76-48bf-975a-2e9cd2ee16dd
[12] https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/open-and-find-items-in-an-outlook-data-file-pst-2e2b55a4-f681-4b93-90cb-31d39349fb95#id0ebd=new_outlook
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/17/skype_classic_headed_for_the_chopping_block_on_september_1/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
When I tried it last year (or it least it foisted itself without fucking asking on a colleague), it couldn't even open multipole inboxes. And yet it was supposed to be ready to for this year. I checked last month, and it can apparently do that now. Although there's still quite a long list of stuff it can't.
I think there's going to be a big correction. Those £600 Apple laptops are going to sell like hot cakes - and some businesses might start thinking about how annoying Microsoft are getting.
We're a small company, with few resources, and no professional IT. There's me, and whatever I can't do, we buy in. We've got a CRM system tied into Outlook and Office 365, because it needs access to our emails. But dealing with the constant and wearying changes with Microsoft is really starting to piss me off.
Got a problem with connecting a new user to that CRM on O365. So I get a vague error message and Google it. Get to Microsoft's own documentation. Which says to fix this problem in Azure. Fine, go to the Azure admin console, which is buried 2 menus deep in their shitty Admin system. Azure tells me that i require a license and all seems to be extra stuff to do with AI. So go to Entra, which says at the top, "This service used to be called Azure"! So yet again, MS change the name of something while immediately re-using the name.
For fuck's sake! You look at a new PC now, it's got Outlook (the old Outlook Express) built in, then Outlook (classic), if you install Office, and finally Outlook (NEW) - why the fuck can't they have different fucking names you useless imbeciles!?!?
I manage our Office 365 because the company that we paid to do it let me down, I had to work out how to clean up their mess, and I haven't yet met a problem on it I couldn't solve. With sufficient time. And swearing... But every fucking time I have to do it, the Microsoft documentation is out of date, or the menu that you go to has a message on it saying, this menu is now in legacy mode and will be updating to something else in a month's time. Every! Fucking! Time!
Can they just give us software that wasn't written by gibbons with ADHD who've taken too much speed? Surely this can't be that hard?
I actually understand the change to Outlook (new). Old Outlook must be a nightmare to maintain, and the thing with the ost/pst files is an unstable mess that causes loads of problems. So I can fully understand not just making a new version, but also wanting to force everyone to move to it. But the way to do that is to start by making it better! And then it's much easier to persuade people. But it seems with everything now it's compulsion as the only option.
Making things better is hard. Forcing your subjects customers by dropping support is easy.
Anyone else remember the days...
...when software was a thing you bought? If a product was shit you just... didn't buy it. "No thank you, I've got one that works perfectly well, I don't think I'll be 'upgrading' at this time." The vendors couldn't drop support for it or otherwise disable it because you already owned it .
Somewhere along the line with vendor lockin, proprietary "standards", and decades of institutional inertia we have gotten things badly, badly wrong.
New Outlook is a stinking pile of poo. To be fair, so is old Outlook, but I'm used to the smell.
It's at the point where if Microsoft is pushing something - ANYTHING - I have to assume that their goal is to limit my options in the future, serve me more 'recommendations', or increase their capability to modify my environment on the fly without consultation.
Classic Outlook is falling
New monthly release of Office, new Outlook Classic bugs. I use both versions, and each has unique features I like, shortcomings, and bugs.
Office Outlook, W10 Outlook, "New" Outlook, outlook.com, Office 364½.......
Whatever - The outlook for Microcrap is NOT GOOD as they continue to piss off their traditional customers with their interference in what users try to do and gross lack of quality.
With Android and Chromebooks/ChomeOS gaining popularity, together with the possible amalgamation of these worthy systems into "Aluminum", and the plethora of brilliant android apps which could potentially be used on Aluminium, the emphasis will eventually shift from a Microcrap world to a Google one.
Re: Office Outlook, W10 Outlook, "New" Outlook, outlook.com, Office 364½.......
I don't see Google being any better. How many messaging/video clients have they released over the years?
If we want to stop this nonsense then open source is the answer.
Re: Office Outlook, W10 Outlook, "New" Outlook, outlook.com, Office 364½.......
Ah yes, Open Source, where you have the choice of a vast array of essentially unfinished choices. Do you want the latest version of GNOME, where the developers have explicitly said that copying shortcuts to the desktop is discouraged? How about an incomplete OneDrive client? Or perhaps sir would enjoy a nice Wayland experience, which attempts to replace the moribund but stable X11? If one is a developer, perhaps one might like to sample delightful tools such as the very intuitive git or the exceedingly helpful Jenkins? And shall we be so gauche as to bring up systemd?
The real problem with software generally seems to be that every new product manager and lead developer wants to leave his mark in much the same way and for the same reason that dogs piss on fire hydrants.
In my opinion, what's really needed is more meaningful competition to Microsoft, whether that's open source or not. Unfortunately, Microsoft has arranged the situation so that they own a vast feature set, well beyond standard desktop productivity. Even if some of those features are not fully baked or are profoundly irritating (SharePoint, I'm looking at you), the sheer scope of what they offer is hard to compete with. I certainly don't see an open source solution competing any time soon.
Re: Office Outlook, W10 Outlook, "New" Outlook, outlook.com, Office 364½.......
Ah yes, Open Source, where you have the choice of a vast array of essentially unfinished choices. Do you want the latest version of GNOME, where the developers have explicitly said that copying shortcuts to the desktop is discouraged? How about an incomplete OneDrive client? Or perhaps sir would enjoy a nice Wayland experience, which attempts to replace the moribund but stable X11? If one is a developer, perhaps one might like to sample delightful tools such as the very intuitive git or the exceedingly helpful Jenkins? And shall we be so gauche as to bring up systemd?
If you're a company, you buy in a solution or support so as you don't have to think about that. Like [1]this or [2]this .
[1] https://office.eu/
[2] https://www.opendesk.eu/en
Can they at least change the spell check back to right click on the red wavy line, like every other product they make, like it was when they introduced it in Word 95????
Even Sage says "It's shit"
As many other companies do, we use Sage at our company for suppliers, accounting and other financial matters. Last week when somehow the sending of invoices via email from Reports in Sage broke for no reason, we suddenly had a very business critical issue on our hands. The emails were generating as drafts as intended, attachments were there and everything but when they were sent, it just errored out immediately and put them back into Drafts. With that initial fact-finding, we just quickly tried putting Outlook back to the old version and lo and behold IT JUST WORKED! Confused why that was the case I then looked at the Support pages for Sage. Even they say more-or-less that New Outlook doesn't work correctly, just force it back to the old one if you need to send automatic emails.
If something messes with invoicing, payroll and other financial processes, I am willing to bet Microsoft has been hearing some colorful feedback on their redesign of Outlook. We were not impacted financially since we caught it and fixed the same morning, but there's almost certainly going to be some that can point to some hard numbers that this redesign has cost them.
Most users where I work hate it and actively switch it off. They get the desperate survey asking why when they do. I'm not sure I believe the accelerated take up, more like they've seen what people think of it.