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Updates & Improvements

Outlook Updates: Fall 2021

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Microsoft users, listen up!

Effective November 1, 2021, the following versions of Outlook for Windows will not be able to connect with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services.

Office and Microsoft 365 Apps Outlook for Windows Version
Office 2007 All Versions
Office 2010 All Versions
Office 2013 Versions prior to 15.0.4971.1000 of Office 2013 (Service Pack 1 with the October 2017 Update)
Office 2016 MSI Versions prior to 16.0.4600.1000 of Office 2016 (With the November 2017 Update, KB 4051890)
Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise;(formerly Office 365 ProPlus) 1705 and older
Microsoft 365 Apps for business(formerly Office 365 Business) 1705 and older

 

Why are old versions being blocked?

Older versions, such as Outlook 2007 and 2010, are incompatible with the upcoming service changes. As a result, this controlled block is being prompted.

  • Support for basic authentication is ending to increase the security of Microsoft 365 by relying on modern authentication protocols, which are not only more secure, but also provide compliance and policy controls to help you manage your data.
  • We’re working on adding support for HTTP/2 in Microsoft 365. HTTP/2 is a full-duplex protocol, which decreases latency through header compression and request multiplexing. On the service side, we’ll be able to better prioritize requests and more effectively push data to clients.

It can be a challenge to stay current, but there are many reasons why staying current is a good idea:

  • Security fixes will protect your devices against known vulnerabilities.
  • Reliability – over the last five years we’ve eliminated 75% of crashes in Outlook!
  • Updated versions have all the coolest new features to make your life easier!

 

How this will affect your organization:

Versions that are newer than the minimum version requirements listed above, but are not the currently supported version, may experience connectivity issues.

To see a list of the currently supported versions, visit Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps (listed by date) (for Microsoft 365 Apps) or Latest updates for versions of Office that use Windows Installer (MSI) (see “Latest Public Update” for Office 2013 and 2016).

Supported versions of Outlook for Windows in Office and Microsoft 365 will continue to connect to Microsoft 365 services as expected.