On a typical day, the support calls for printer installs, email setups, etc tend to be pretty standard with few exceptions. However, today a simple email issue has surprised me (a rare though appreciated treat). The client had opted to follow Microsoft’s prompting and switched from good old Outlook (classic) to new Outlook. However, upon the transformation to the new slicker interface, they could not access one of their Microsoft 365 accounts and hence their call to us. They were presented with the following error:
At first I suspected it was a possible licence issue, it was not. Then a possible mis-error with new Outlook, similarly not the case. Part of the engineers repair guide is to setup a seperate email profile to which I discovered that new Outlook does not appear to give the option any more to switch profiles at launch. So back to Outlook (Classic), we went and the old familiar interface sprung to life with full access to this blocked account. Odd, further research need and a couple of web searches later lead me to:
New Outlook giving “license provided by work or school error” when – Microsoft Community
This response from Microsoft shocked and surprised me as it revealed a sneaky altering of their services that would catch out clients who were not fully committed to the 365 ecosystem. Basically, on new Outlook (Outlook (Classic) is not affected) if you have a Microsoft 365 Basic licence for email and not the Microsoft 365 Standard licence for apps, then new Outlook will block your access to the Basic mailbox unless you either downgrade to Outlook (Classic) or upgrade your Basic licence to Standard. Personally, I don’t agree with this change in Microsoft’s position as I too use a number of Microsoft 365 Basic mailboxes. That said, I do not intend to “upgrade” to New Outlook unless there is some ultimatum.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, the easist solution is to use the switch in the top right corner of new Outlook to revert to Outlook (Classic). Hopefully, in the future Microsoft might change their policy though this issue may become a ticking time bomb for the point when Microsoft stop supported Outlook (Classic).
You can sign-up to my newsletter to get regular posts on all matters relating to Business & Technology.
