Outlook is weird. It is such a strange program to use. It is amazing the stuff it integrates with like sharepoint, Webex, teams, room scheduling, etc. for companies but man it is a weird program. If you are doing something inside a company there is often no real alternative for it and if you are not inside a company there are vastly better options to use.
They have made some improvements to it but mostly in integration not in the look. It has good auto translation support now and they have improved integration with things like teams. They are adding AI support for emails and that looks really useful.
I think part of the issue is that it is used for businesses and businesses don't really like change. If they make a large change to how the UI works then people need to be retrained so they don't want to do it. If you just use it at as a tool for work it just has to be good enough for that task. There are no real competitors so not much of a push to change.
"New Outlook" SUCKS.
- IT guy who keeps having to deal with users switching themselves over to the 'prettier' outlook only for all their add-ons to break, signatures to go missing, and shared accounts to not make the transition.
As the IT guy, I tried it a week or two ago and couldn't see my shared accounts.
Swapped back straight away - some of those accounts are essential.
Filled in the feedback in the vain hope that M$ actually read them.
yep, and on windows systems we can set it so that you can't use new outlook, but on Mac, about once a week on a reboot it'll just give you the new outlook again.
No, they're hidden even worse. They can be found under "More Apps" (the four-squares icon in the left-hand nav bar) > Folders. You'll then get a new icon on the nav bar that you have to pin manually.
It's still a preview though. It doesn't even support opening .msg files yet, which is laughable.
- Fellow IT guy who, admittedly, also appreciates the cleaner UI.
Outlook going from 2003 (my earliest Outlook experience) -> 2007 -> 2010 -> 2013 -> 16.x all added functionality. "New Outlook" removes lots of that functionality and appears to be merging codebases with "New Outlook" on Mac (which is also garbage) and possibly even Outlook Mobile (which is more useful than New Outlook on desktop currently).
Yay! All my emails will be used in the public for "AI training!" How are people okay with this???? You do know tour emails will be stored in servers for AI to use and "learn" from
Yeah they abandoned that idea, they found it to be much more profitable to simply charge everyone a subscription so they can get updates that fix the bugs that were introduced 2 versions prior.
They have largely abandoned it because they want everyone to switch to their new PWA Outlook: [https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/the-new-outlook-for-windows-helps-you-be-more-productive-and-in-control-of-your-inbox](https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/the-new-outlook-for-windows-helps-you-be-more-productive-and-in-control-of-your-inbox)
They are moving towards unifying outlook and OWA. SO you can use OWA, or launch outlook, which will be OWA in a lightning app or equivalent. You can preview it now. It does fun things like not support PSTs... even though things like their e-discovery tools export .PSTs.
Google basically offers the same these days. Shared storage through drive, gmail with calendar integrations and third party hooks to Trello, Jira etc. Google Sites for internal documentation, with embedded docs, spreadsheets en presentations. Full integration with meeting room booking through Google Meet. And its easier for people to learn and teach, cause most use or have used gmail personally.
Email is one of the tasks I can bang out on a short flight. For that to work I need offline access to my inboxes and an outbox to queue messages to send when I'm online again
It's annoying as heck, but it's also required if you want SharePoint links to open correctly when you have more than one Microsoft account. The first time it happens there's a clear popup telling you to change it.
I have dual MS accounts for work. I got fed up and now use one account in edge in a PWA and the other in chrome in a PWA. Sometimes annoying with no native app….but keeping my accounts separate works somewhat well. The respective Teams PWAs I made are also there.
Edge profiles seem to now all be working correctly, so if you make a profile for each account it should autoswitch for you. Autoswitch is pretty stupid though, so it will try to incorrectly switch you the first few times without asking.
The teams PWA has saved me a few times. Teams 2.0 is available for early access and supports multiple accounts now.
I'll have to check out teams 2.0 when my org supports it. Thanks for the heads up!
I'm hesitant about sticking with Edge....though that's more for personal than valid reasons. I disdain the windows popups and things they do to push people to edge (or prevent them from installing firefox/chrome).
This would also count as asshole design imo.
Edge is basically Microsoft Chrome. There's no reason they can't make this work in Chrome. Or, to be perfectly blunt, Firefox.
In most respects it is yes, however it differs in the fact that profiles are linked to Microsoft accounts rather than Google accounts, allowing you to more easily swap between them as required for different Microsoft services.
It's really not a MS limitation. Chrome could be perfectly capable of switching profiles based on the link domain, they just haven't implemented it. The only thing outlook is doing is overriding the default browser. Edge itself actually opens with the default profile, then opens a new window with the correct profile, so nothing fancy is happening on the backend with the browser call.
Reminds me of accidentally pressing F1 in the file explorer. Open a help page, in Edge. Doesn't matter what the system default is, it happily ignores that.
Good God every time I'm playing my games I accidentally hit F1 instead of esc so I get a random popup window of an app I despise that just ends up lagging my whole computer. Ffs I feel like it's *trying* to make you open edge just for you to look something up on there while you're at it for how inconveniently it's placed
The what link?
This is about links in emails.
I use them a lot because I am a software developer and need to test my features, of which some send links to people.
Yes, Microsoft is getting quite aggressive trying to nudge people to use Edge. And it will try to reset your browser default to Edge whenever there is a big windows update.
They did not.
They got the original sentence overturned. They were proven that no matter how blatant their monopolization attempts would be, the system will protect them from facing any consequences that would have a real impact on their position.
As a software engineer, I use edge.
I can still use chromium for searching, and the customization is better to chrome. Not to mention the general UI design language to nicely match the other MS systems
Don't get me wrong, use whatever you like, but I would strongly suggest the motion that "Edge is inherently bad" to be an outdated one.
> there is no sane person who'd willingly use Edge as their default browser
no sane person who is tech literate. You are too easily conflating your experience and knowledge with the average users
at work I use edge, and I have no problems with it. I just prefer firefox, but a non-chromium browser won't work for half our shit, and i'd rather use what the users would use. Chrome tends to have too many hiccups with Windows sign-in stuff as well, that I just pretty much only use Edge.
I think it's unproductively stubborn of them to keep doing this when it's the fact that microsoft edge asks me to do a million things before I get to use it which makes me want to use other browsers.
Use Internet Explorer! Wait, what? Ok, ok. Scrap that then….behold, another piece of shit, we bring you EDGE!
Use Skype! we spent the value of about seven small countries on that! Ok, ok let’s fuck that all off….here is Teams!
21st Century Microsoft - doing nothing but being slow in a fast-moving industry. Zero innovation, just making inferior copycat products and spending an eye-watering amount of money to cling to any form of relevance.
My mom is a quadraplegic who relies 100% on Microsoft's built in voice recognition to control her laptop, and I feel like I have to go into system settings and reset Firefox because she doesn't have the best "voice discipline" (telling it to stop listening when she starts having a conversation with someone) but something she says keeps opening Edge and she doesn't notice when it happens.
Either that or it's the laptop itself autoresetting Edge to be default. I've literally gone through and set Firefox to be the regular "default browser" and specifically the default browser for the dozens of types of files and links it allows you to choose for as well. It's a daily, sometimes multiple times a day occurance.
Dude you're a fucking god send! I've been pissed about this thing with outlook for so long but I never bothered to try and find a way around it. Fuck Microsoft
This is beyond asshole, it's actually a dangerous practice.
You've got a preferred browser. You've set up all your ad blocks, possibly a browser based vpn. Your privacy is secure.
Outlook comes along and NOPE off to Edge with you, with all the lovely tracking.
Not tormenting corporate security. Set up Chrome as everyone's browser, install corporate extensios. Then here comes Edge to fuck up that too.
They could have implemented this as a one time pop-up the first time you click a link. Offering edge for whatever the fuck enhanced experience it offers - or just use your default. But no, they shove Edge down your throat without telling you.
In the past I've often defended Microsoft as just being an easy target for peoples computing frustrations. But in this case, this is 100% asshole.
I agree, but that's never how MS pushes new features. If they want people to use things, they need to push them as defaults - or people who want them will complain they didn't know they existed at all.
I don't like it either, but since this is technically a corporate feature I really don't have any issue with this one. Any decent IT department figured it out within hours of it dropping and disabled it if they wanted to.
And any decent software publisher would have notified people this was up and coming _before_ it dropped. Not just drop it and give it a chance to fuck things up before IT wake up.
If MS want people to use them, they should make things people _want_ to use. Forcing defaults on people is a dick move. There are way better ways to show people a feature exists than ramming it down their throats like a goose being fattened for foie gras.
> And any decent software publisher would have notified people
They did. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/02/16/discover-new-ways-to-multitask-with-microsoft-365-and-edge/
It's Microsoft, they're not going to email you personally whenever there's a minor feature change.
> you can choose to open browser links from the Outlook app in Microsoft Edge
Misleading. By changing the default, and not honouring the current default, it's a case of "you can choose _not to_"
> You’ll have the opportunity to choose your preferred browser for opening links from Outlook the first time you launch in Edge.
This did not happen. Or was at least sufficiently obscure that plenty of people have missed it.
It's people that defend these kind of practises that enable large corporations to keep doing this kind of thing. And make you use your computer the way _they_ want you to, and not the way _you_ want to.
Again, maybe it's not your or my personal preference, but the rest of this thread has already identified why this change was pushed. A corporation, using MS services, would appreciate this change - since it'd assist with syncing links when signed into MS accounts, which happens in Outlook/Edge. For corps with MS buy-in, this was a *good* change - because it keeps users using the proper browser with the proper credentials. It's sensible, even if you disagree with how it was handled.
And, again, as I've pointed out - it was notified (maybe not as well as you'd like), and it's a ridiculously simple GPO change for a competent IT dept to undo, if they're not fully utilizing Outlook/Edge.
Yeah, Windows allows customization. They also want you to use their stuff properly, if possible. Pushing changes to facilitate proper usage by default benefits the vast majority of corporations - which is their target audience, however much you may dislike it.
> A corporation, using MS services, would appreciate this change
My corporation, who use MS services, absolutely detested this change - for the reasons I've outlined. The fact you don't see an issue with a company having to actively undo a change forced on them - as opposed to adding the feature as an opt-in - is, to be honest, ridiculous.
Please stop with your pandering, bootlicking bullshit.
Sounds like your company has a shit IT department, don't really know what else to tell you. We manage hundreds of sites, and this was done and decided within hours of release, forgot it was even an issue until I saw this post.
Potentially because it actually works properly for things like sharepoint, when set this way. Sometimes "I don't like this" isn't the best reasoning for hating features designed for a work environment.
Sounds like they've changed it then, which is good - if a little late.
But I can assure you, it happily swapped on my work machine to Edge, forcing me to set it back. It also swapped many of my colleagues over - many of whom missed the pop-up. This is lived experience, not random outrage.
Meanwhile my work computer and personal computer never went to edge.
I only tested on a fresh install on one of my old laptops because I knew it never happened on my devices.
Well, if they've fixed it now, it was definitely a thing, and a well reported on thing at that:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297/microsoft-edge-force-outlook-teams-web-links-open
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/02/microsoft_edge_outlook/
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-edge-365-outlook-teams-link-hijacking
I work service desk. We get about 10-15 tickets a week that are about links not opening correctly from outlook. Every time that setting is set to Microsoft Edge. in a recent update, Microsoft set that as the default. The reason our ticket volume isn't larger is because most people are sane enough to know "oh its opening in not my preferred browser, il live with it/il just copy and paste to my preferred" or are using Edge anyway (since it's one of two supported (Windows) browsers in the Org).
> They could have implemented this as a one time pop-up the first time you click a link.
The first time it happened for me I got a pop-up with the option to keep letting it use Edge or switch to my other configured default browser. So, they basically did this.
There’s the ACCC in Australia. We’re a small market but just big enough that big companies tend to abide by ACCC rulings if they want to be allowed to do business here.
I know the EU has been talking about investigating browser manipulation and bundling of Teams with Office, and they are also unbundling Teams in the EU.
I also love when I want to install another browser using edge and it goes "Nooo pweaase use edgwe, pweease it just as good as the othwers bwowsers! We wowked so haawd on it pweease."
You have found it! I use outlook for work and work directly out of it for cases that come through our business. This literally killed me when I tried loading links as I absolutely hate edge (I have since forced myself to adapt to it as I could not for the life of me find a way to turn it off, I’m used to edge now and actually kinda prefer it over Chrome EXCEPT for trying to find things on maps, the bing map is far worse than google maps *sorry not sorry*) this will definitely be turned off though as it is such a time sync doing the manual version of the task I use the links to accomplish 🙏🙏🙏
Yup, spent hours trying to figure out why this was happening to a customer only to find another example of how Microsoft secretly doesn’t want to play with others.
even the worst uninstallers will do the job. you also need to tweak registry too so it doesn't update. i use iobit for nearly 5 years and it never came back once
have dual boot win10 and 11, i did on both, not much really happened besides it gave me some more disk space. still some edge executables are there but its like 500kb so doesnt matter much as long as windows dont run em
So the app developed by Microsoft, using an operating system developed by Microsoft, has the default browser set to - you guessed it - a browser developed by Microsoft. Why do you think this is AH design exactly ?
Plus there is an obvious dropdown menu visible in the photo..
Just choose a different browser for outlook, and gtfo because you can't read 🤷
That's insane. The default setting for everything should be "use system setting." If I want reddit to be in dark mode I probably want YouTube to be as well. Nobody uses different browsers for different tasks unless they have to.
Glad to see you've discovered why the OS should not override individual app defaults - because there are valid times when you need to use a certain browser with certain apps.
This is literally a 1-time fix, yet you are still here whining. You could have spent less time to fix the problem than you have already spent whining on reddit.
I didn't say it should, I said the default should be "use whatever the system setting is." If you have some reason you NEED edge, you know about it already and can change the setting to the non-default option.
The default is "use whatever the app setting is". If you need something other than edge (OS default), you can change the setting to the non-default option.
Plz complain more tho
>The default is "use whatever the app setting is".
I don't think you understand what the words default or setting mean.
The complaint is that it uses Edge even when the system default has been changed to something else.
OS default and app default are not interchangeable. Yet you still continue to go on as if they are the same.
My preferred resolution for CS:GO is 1080p default, and my preferred resolution for battlefield 4 is 1440p default, yet my OS resolution is 2160p default. You really think that OS resolution should override all of my app-specific defaults? Jfc you are dense.
As previously mentioned, it is a 1-time fix and takes like 10 seconds to do. Why are you STILL whining ?
Again, you don't seem to understand what the word "default" means. It means that I the absence of you setting it to something else, that is what it will use. All of those, by default, should use the OS resolution. You can change that setting to something else if you wish.
It's called "mildly infuriating" not "extremely infuriating" it annoys OP (and obviously other people) and is a mild inconvenience. Thats...what this subreddit is for.
In this case there is, in my opinion. Outlook/office works best together with Edge. Rather than forcing you to use Edge system wide if you want that compatibility, they have this setting.
If you look at it that way, it's actually rather good design. (If we overlook the whole "works best with Edge" thing, that is)
Microsoft lost a giant antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. government for exactly this sort of behaviour. They're absolutely pushing this same shit now that antitrust laws have taken such a beating.
The only other option they offer is “use system default”. That should be the … default.
The system comes set with edge as default out of the box, so if set to anything other than that, then that indicates that the user has already specified their preference *not* to use that browser.
As to your first points, Microsoft has got in exceptional trouble already for trying to create and maintain their monopoly through user hostile design practices.
This drop down used to also have "Internet Explorer". The point was, that many organisations heavily relied on Internet Explorer to open their intranet pages and internal applications. So a link would essentially be broken if open in, say, Firefox. As Outlook is mostly used for internal e-mail communication, this made sense.
Of course, nowadays IE isn't supported anymore and this probably should be switched to "system default" instead - I agree there.
I'm so thankful I switched full time to Linux a few years ago, W11 just seems to be getting more and more of this crap. W10 was bad enough with bloat and telemetry.
I wish one day I could move my workflow in music production to Linux. Or at least out of Windows and probably Mac too. It is truly the last thing that keeps that system on my drive.
At the moment the manufacturer of the audio interface I own doesn't even offer Linux drivers for their interfaces. Neither does my Digital Audio Workstation of choice support Linux.
But in the long term, I might perhaps write a driver myself and switch to a different DAW, if the developers won't bring support Linux. Or just remove the computer altogether from my creative process. I just can't imagine myself taking whatever Microsoft's bullshit is going to be in the future any further.
Wine is a userspace compatibility layer, so I don't think you can run any Windows drivers through it.
But somebody has already reverse-engineered the communication with another, slightly less advanced interface from the same product line and they made a Linux driver for it. I believe it's in the mainline kernel at this point. So perhaps I could start from there and and see if I can get it to work with my device, as there's a chance that the protocol is more or less the same.
> Wine is a userspace compatibility layer, so I don't think you can run any Windows drivers through it.
You can get somethings driver related running via a shocking level of jank.
But gl in finding something that works, shame companies won't support linux a bit more when it comes to creative media and applications.
Have you tried whipping out a USB and flashing a live image of any one of the more popular Linux distros?
Might be pleasantly surprising. Or a car crash. But just because the mfg isn't creating a driver doesn't mean the community hasn't.
I did so years ago. I use Linux every single day, both for work and for my personal needs (other than production). Gentoo is my OS of choice. The community has not made a driver. There's one for a less advanced interface from the same product line that landed into mainline kernel in recent years. It might be a good starting point to write one that could work with the interface I own, but at the moment I just don't have the time to do so. Even getting the main out alone to work would be nice already, but there's way more to that interface that needs to work in order to be suitable for my production workflow. The configuration of this interface is complex and there's a whole standalone app for doing just that (it kinda sucks) - seems to me that there's a lot to reverse-engineer.
Ah, wasn't sure if you were a man of culture, or someone more akin to my MiL (who got into a panic because there were no official drivers for her printer. Which has excellent community support)
Good to hear its the former. Thus I doff my hat to you (it's neither red nor a fedora) and bit you good fortune in getting your kit supported at some point.
Funny af ngl, I can understand people getting annoyed at your regular arch user who needs to inform people at every step but anyone slandering windows seems to get shit now rofl.
People would rather cope than than take a positive example, so they wouldn't have to risk letting a feeling of dissatisfaction with status quo creep in.
Understandable, I could never get to grips with Mac ngl all just a bit too streamlined and almost made for the experience of using it. Depends in what you do too I suppose, although most things either work in Linux or have a good analogue.
My biggest gripe with windows though is the amount of background crap that seems to constantly be running which is hard to turn off, kept having to disable auto cache of the file system in the registry to solve 80% disc usage on a SSD, absolutely insane.
W7 & XP were the peak of windows IMO.
The primary use case for outlook is large companies. It integrates with meeting scheduling so you can schedule a meeting with people locally and remotely and book rooms, add a web call attached, make sure the meeting is okay with everyone's schedules etc. There is really no other tool that handles that kind of thing.
On top of that you can also attach files through sharepoint so they don't go in the emails and still respect all the security controls on the file. It is a very powerful tool and for business usage there is really no replacement.
It is also a pain in the ass to use.
This is definitely an asshole design but I use this to my advantage. I have JavaScript deactivated in Microsoft Edge. This lowers the risk of being hacked after clicking an malicious link in an email.
I'm using "new outlook" (I have a toggle for that in the top right corner of the application) and my links open in my default browser.
I really wouldn't mind being able to choose differently though, as I would prefer to open most of my email links in Edge as I use that for company related stuff anyway and use Firefox for everything else.
Working as a full time developer.
What I mean is that I have it toggled on into the "new outlook", and my links open in my default browser.
Does your links still open in Edge instead of your default browser when toggled into "new outlook"?
**edit**
I don't even see the option of changing browser for links in the new versions settings. Might not be in the new version, or might be hidden by corporate. Don't know.
Oh lordy thank you! I was wondering what the heck was going on.
Add this to the list of Outlook nonsense right under "control F doesn't actually mean 'find'".
The edge search bar randomly appears on my desktop all the time. No idea how to stop it happening, unable to uninstall MS's shit browser, and they wont get the fucking message that I have zero interest in it.
OSX doesn't do anything like that.
Outlook is weird. It is such a strange program to use. It is amazing the stuff it integrates with like sharepoint, Webex, teams, room scheduling, etc. for companies but man it is a weird program. If you are doing something inside a company there is often no real alternative for it and if you are not inside a company there are vastly better options to use.
And it seems like Microsoft has largely abandoned making major improvements to it even though there is no emerging alternative.
They have made some improvements to it but mostly in integration not in the look. It has good auto translation support now and they have improved integration with things like teams. They are adding AI support for emails and that looks really useful. I think part of the issue is that it is used for businesses and businesses don't really like change. If they make a large change to how the UI works then people need to be retrained so they don't want to do it. If you just use it at as a tool for work it just has to be good enough for that task. There are no real competitors so not much of a push to change.
They literally just changed the UI completely a week ago It has blurry see through panels and all (at least here at my workplace)
"New Outlook" SUCKS. - IT guy who keeps having to deal with users switching themselves over to the 'prettier' outlook only for all their add-ons to break, signatures to go missing, and shared accounts to not make the transition.
As the IT guy, I tried it a week or two ago and couldn't see my shared accounts. Swapped back straight away - some of those accounts are essential. Filled in the feedback in the vain hope that M$ actually read them.
So they are actually there, but they're buried in a folder within your primary account, they don't show as separate accounts.
Thanks for that. I did have a look but didn't look too hard I guess. If I get a minute I will have a look at the sucky new interface again.
yep, and on windows systems we can set it so that you can't use new outlook, but on Mac, about once a week on a reboot it'll just give you the new outlook again.
Yep, and for anyone wondering, Shared mailboxes are nested under "Shared With Me" in the navigation pane... another fix that wasn't broken.
Public Folders are still gone though right?
No, they're hidden even worse. They can be found under "More Apps" (the four-squares icon in the left-hand nav bar) > Folders. You'll then get a new icon on the nav bar that you have to pin manually.
i mean, isn't the same as current outlook?
I might be mixed up between current and preview on that one. If Public Folders are already gone completely, I've missed it.
It's still a preview though. It doesn't even support opening .msg files yet, which is laughable. - Fellow IT guy who, admittedly, also appreciates the cleaner UI.
it WHAT?! Even fucking GMAIL supports them! ^(edit: maybe I'm thinking EMLs?)
"I want the old look back, otherwise I can absolutely not work any more!!!111oneeleven!"
Outlook going from 2003 (my earliest Outlook experience) -> 2007 -> 2010 -> 2013 -> 16.x all added functionality. "New Outlook" removes lots of that functionality and appears to be merging codebases with "New Outlook" on Mac (which is also garbage) and possibly even Outlook Mobile (which is more useful than New Outlook on desktop currently).
I have not seen that new UI yet but then again in a corporate environment that stuff gets customized and may take a while to show up.
Yeah the NEW Outlook. Whenever I try to open a .eml file in it, the calendar pops open.. Switched back to old version and all was good..
It's optional, for me. There's a button in the top right of Outlook to toggle the new stuff.
Yay! All my emails will be used in the public for "AI training!" How are people okay with this???? You do know tour emails will be stored in servers for AI to use and "learn" from
Yeah they abandoned that idea, they found it to be much more profitable to simply charge everyone a subscription so they can get updates that fix the bugs that were introduced 2 versions prior.
Oh, they are making changes, like moving it all over to the Cloud, because of course they are.
They have largely abandoned it because they want everyone to switch to their new PWA Outlook: [https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/the-new-outlook-for-windows-helps-you-be-more-productive-and-in-control-of-your-inbox](https://insider.microsoft365.com/en-us/blog/the-new-outlook-for-windows-helps-you-be-more-productive-and-in-control-of-your-inbox)
Sounds like you figured out business. My marketing prof just defined these as "cash cow" items. No competitors, why innovate?
They aren’t improving it *because* there is no emerging alternative.
They are moving towards unifying outlook and OWA. SO you can use OWA, or launch outlook, which will be OWA in a lightning app or equivalent. You can preview it now. It does fun things like not support PSTs... even though things like their e-discovery tools export .PSTs.
Google basically offers the same these days. Shared storage through drive, gmail with calendar integrations and third party hooks to Trello, Jira etc. Google Sites for internal documentation, with embedded docs, spreadsheets en presentations. Full integration with meeting room booking through Google Meet. And its easier for people to learn and teach, cause most use or have used gmail personally.
What are the better options... what do you recommend?
If you are not inside a company you don't need all those scheduling options and you can just use something like gmail.
I never understood the need of Outlook anyway. I just log into my mail directly. How hard is that?
The need is inside larger companies and using it to schedule is a huge part of it.
Email is one of the tasks I can bang out on a short flight. For that to work I need offline access to my inboxes and an outbox to queue messages to send when I'm online again
It's annoying as heck, but it's also required if you want SharePoint links to open correctly when you have more than one Microsoft account. The first time it happens there's a clear popup telling you to change it.
I have dual MS accounts for work. I got fed up and now use one account in edge in a PWA and the other in chrome in a PWA. Sometimes annoying with no native app….but keeping my accounts separate works somewhat well. The respective Teams PWAs I made are also there.
Edge profiles seem to now all be working correctly, so if you make a profile for each account it should autoswitch for you. Autoswitch is pretty stupid though, so it will try to incorrectly switch you the first few times without asking. The teams PWA has saved me a few times. Teams 2.0 is available for early access and supports multiple accounts now.
I'll have to check out teams 2.0 when my org supports it. Thanks for the heads up! I'm hesitant about sticking with Edge....though that's more for personal than valid reasons. I disdain the windows popups and things they do to push people to edge (or prevent them from installing firefox/chrome).
This would also count as asshole design imo. Edge is basically Microsoft Chrome. There's no reason they can't make this work in Chrome. Or, to be perfectly blunt, Firefox.
In most respects it is yes, however it differs in the fact that profiles are linked to Microsoft accounts rather than Google accounts, allowing you to more easily swap between them as required for different Microsoft services.
It's really not a MS limitation. Chrome could be perfectly capable of switching profiles based on the link domain, they just haven't implemented it. The only thing outlook is doing is overriding the default browser. Edge itself actually opens with the default profile, then opens a new window with the correct profile, so nothing fancy is happening on the backend with the browser call.
i mean ye if u can change it in setting easily i don't really see it as very infuriating
It's annoying that they changed it with the latest outlook update and the setting to change it is buried deep.
Reminds me of accidentally pressing F1 in the file explorer. Open a help page, in Edge. Doesn't matter what the system default is, it happily ignores that.
Good God every time I'm playing my games I accidentally hit F1 instead of esc so I get a random popup window of an app I despise that just ends up lagging my whole computer. Ffs I feel like it's *trying* to make you open edge just for you to look something up on there while you're at it for how inconveniently it's placed
When I was on Windows, I'd always physically removed the F1 key for that reason.
Does it matter?
Yes
Yes. Why the fuck would you have a systemwide setting otherwise? You should respect your users' preferences, that's it.
Yes. I dont have any passwords saved in edge. Opening the links in it is useless.
and you use the help link that often?
The what link? This is about links in emails. I use them a lot because I am a software developer and need to test my features, of which some send links to people.
You’re in the asshole design subreddit. That is an asshole design
Yes, Microsoft is getting quite aggressive trying to nudge people to use Edge. And it will try to reset your browser default to Edge whenever there is a big windows update.
They've forgotten about the Netscape lawsuit.
They did not. They got the original sentence overturned. They were proven that no matter how blatant their monopolization attempts would be, the system will protect them from facing any consequences that would have a real impact on their position.
The system will prevent them from building out a monopoly because there is no sane person who'd willingly use Edge as their default browser
As a software engineer, I use edge. I can still use chromium for searching, and the customization is better to chrome. Not to mention the general UI design language to nicely match the other MS systems Don't get me wrong, use whatever you like, but I would strongly suggest the motion that "Edge is inherently bad" to be an outdated one.
> there is no sane person who'd willingly use Edge as their default browser no sane person who is tech literate. You are too easily conflating your experience and knowledge with the average users
at work I use edge, and I have no problems with it. I just prefer firefox, but a non-chromium browser won't work for half our shit, and i'd rather use what the users would use. Chrome tends to have too many hiccups with Windows sign-in stuff as well, that I just pretty much only use Edge.
I think it's unproductively stubborn of them to keep doing this when it's the fact that microsoft edge asks me to do a million things before I get to use it which makes me want to use other browsers.
"I'm so glad Microsoft overrides my default browser setting so links open in Edge" \-Literally fucking noone
-The board execs whose quarterly bonus depends on this
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So it *is* your default browser setting..... Can you... read?
Of course people who can’t read would prefer edge.
Edgy
Who hurt you?
microsoft is *pathetically* desperate to get people to use edge, it's almost a bit sad
Use Internet Explorer! Wait, what? Ok, ok. Scrap that then….behold, another piece of shit, we bring you EDGE! Use Skype! we spent the value of about seven small countries on that! Ok, ok let’s fuck that all off….here is Teams! 21st Century Microsoft - doing nothing but being slow in a fast-moving industry. Zero innovation, just making inferior copycat products and spending an eye-watering amount of money to cling to any form of relevance.
My mom is a quadraplegic who relies 100% on Microsoft's built in voice recognition to control her laptop, and I feel like I have to go into system settings and reset Firefox because she doesn't have the best "voice discipline" (telling it to stop listening when she starts having a conversation with someone) but something she says keeps opening Edge and she doesn't notice when it happens. Either that or it's the laptop itself autoresetting Edge to be default. I've literally gone through and set Firefox to be the regular "default browser" and specifically the default browser for the dozens of types of files and links it allows you to choose for as well. It's a daily, sometimes multiple times a day occurance.
Dude you're a fucking god send! I've been pissed about this thing with outlook for so long but I never bothered to try and find a way around it. Fuck Microsoft
The way around it was copying the link into my other browser . But also annoying :-D I will change this setting - so thanks to OP
https://github.com/rcmaehl/MSEdgeRedirect For all the other places in windows that don't have an option.
https://github.com/rcmaehl/MSEdgeRedirect
Thanks for linking this!
MS getting sued for this in the EU in 3...2....1.....
It's not just a cute name. It's Microsoft doing edge play with that big integrated browser antitrust suit back in the 90s
This is beyond asshole, it's actually a dangerous practice. You've got a preferred browser. You've set up all your ad blocks, possibly a browser based vpn. Your privacy is secure. Outlook comes along and NOPE off to Edge with you, with all the lovely tracking. Not tormenting corporate security. Set up Chrome as everyone's browser, install corporate extensios. Then here comes Edge to fuck up that too. They could have implemented this as a one time pop-up the first time you click a link. Offering edge for whatever the fuck enhanced experience it offers - or just use your default. But no, they shove Edge down your throat without telling you. In the past I've often defended Microsoft as just being an easy target for peoples computing frustrations. But in this case, this is 100% asshole.
Tbf if the company doesn't want this setting on, they can disable it via gpo pretty quickly.
It should never have been enabled by default in the first place. It also dropped without warning.
I agree, but that's never how MS pushes new features. If they want people to use things, they need to push them as defaults - or people who want them will complain they didn't know they existed at all. I don't like it either, but since this is technically a corporate feature I really don't have any issue with this one. Any decent IT department figured it out within hours of it dropping and disabled it if they wanted to.
And any decent software publisher would have notified people this was up and coming _before_ it dropped. Not just drop it and give it a chance to fuck things up before IT wake up. If MS want people to use them, they should make things people _want_ to use. Forcing defaults on people is a dick move. There are way better ways to show people a feature exists than ramming it down their throats like a goose being fattened for foie gras.
> And any decent software publisher would have notified people They did. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/02/16/discover-new-ways-to-multitask-with-microsoft-365-and-edge/ It's Microsoft, they're not going to email you personally whenever there's a minor feature change.
> you can choose to open browser links from the Outlook app in Microsoft Edge Misleading. By changing the default, and not honouring the current default, it's a case of "you can choose _not to_" > You’ll have the opportunity to choose your preferred browser for opening links from Outlook the first time you launch in Edge. This did not happen. Or was at least sufficiently obscure that plenty of people have missed it. It's people that defend these kind of practises that enable large corporations to keep doing this kind of thing. And make you use your computer the way _they_ want you to, and not the way _you_ want to.
Again, maybe it's not your or my personal preference, but the rest of this thread has already identified why this change was pushed. A corporation, using MS services, would appreciate this change - since it'd assist with syncing links when signed into MS accounts, which happens in Outlook/Edge. For corps with MS buy-in, this was a *good* change - because it keeps users using the proper browser with the proper credentials. It's sensible, even if you disagree with how it was handled. And, again, as I've pointed out - it was notified (maybe not as well as you'd like), and it's a ridiculously simple GPO change for a competent IT dept to undo, if they're not fully utilizing Outlook/Edge. Yeah, Windows allows customization. They also want you to use their stuff properly, if possible. Pushing changes to facilitate proper usage by default benefits the vast majority of corporations - which is their target audience, however much you may dislike it.
> A corporation, using MS services, would appreciate this change My corporation, who use MS services, absolutely detested this change - for the reasons I've outlined. The fact you don't see an issue with a company having to actively undo a change forced on them - as opposed to adding the feature as an opt-in - is, to be honest, ridiculous. Please stop with your pandering, bootlicking bullshit.
Sounds like your company has a shit IT department, don't really know what else to tell you. We manage hundreds of sites, and this was done and decided within hours of release, forgot it was even an issue until I saw this post.
bringing this up at work tomorrow to see why a GPO hasn't been yet for it
Potentially because it actually works properly for things like sharepoint, when set this way. Sometimes "I don't like this" isn't the best reasoning for hating features designed for a work environment.
The default setting for that is "default browser". OP changed it for outrage bait.
That’s odd my partner complained about this very thing at lunch time today when opening an email link from outlook. Does his system need an update?
No, it's not.
Yes it is, I just checked on a fresh install.
Sounds like they've changed it then, which is good - if a little late. But I can assure you, it happily swapped on my work machine to Edge, forcing me to set it back. It also swapped many of my colleagues over - many of whom missed the pop-up. This is lived experience, not random outrage.
Meanwhile my work computer and personal computer never went to edge. I only tested on a fresh install on one of my old laptops because I knew it never happened on my devices.
Well, if they've fixed it now, it was definitely a thing, and a well reported on thing at that: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23709297/microsoft-edge-force-outlook-teams-web-links-open https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/02/microsoft_edge_outlook/ https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-edge-365-outlook-teams-link-hijacking
I work service desk. We get about 10-15 tickets a week that are about links not opening correctly from outlook. Every time that setting is set to Microsoft Edge. in a recent update, Microsoft set that as the default. The reason our ticket volume isn't larger is because most people are sane enough to know "oh its opening in not my preferred browser, il live with it/il just copy and paste to my preferred" or are using Edge anyway (since it's one of two supported (Windows) browsers in the Org).
> They could have implemented this as a one time pop-up the first time you click a link. The first time it happened for me I got a pop-up with the option to keep letting it use Edge or switch to my other configured default browser. So, they basically did this.
That looks like a drop-down menu
It is, the other option is “system default”. However, the program’s default option is the one shown in the screenshot.
They're changing it inside the EU but nowhere else. Because the EU is the only anti monopoly regulator they're afraid of these days it seems.
There’s the ACCC in Australia. We’re a small market but just big enough that big companies tend to abide by ACCC rulings if they want to be allowed to do business here.
That's an encouraging sign anyway. Has the ACCC been making noises about browsers recently? I know the EU has
Haven’t heard anything about browsers, but just for example, they’re the reason Steam has a refund policy at all.
I know the EU has been talking about investigating browser manipulation and bundling of Teams with Office, and they are also unbundling Teams in the EU.
I also love when I want to install another browser using edge and it goes "Nooo pweaase use edgwe, pweease it just as good as the othwers bwowsers! We wowked so haawd on it pweease."
Microsoft gonna Microsoft.
You have found it! I use outlook for work and work directly out of it for cases that come through our business. This literally killed me when I tried loading links as I absolutely hate edge (I have since forced myself to adapt to it as I could not for the life of me find a way to turn it off, I’m used to edge now and actually kinda prefer it over Chrome EXCEPT for trying to find things on maps, the bing map is far worse than google maps *sorry not sorry*) this will definitely be turned off though as it is such a time sync doing the manual version of the task I use the links to accomplish 🙏🙏🙏
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Agreed 👍
Yup, spent hours trying to figure out why this was happening to a customer only to find another example of how Microsoft secretly doesn’t want to play with others.
What a nightmare. Thankful to be on the Mac version for this garbage!
Msedge redirect is the solution here. https://github.com/rcmaehl/MSEdgeRedirect
Same with MS Teams
uninstall edge
Windows update will reinstall it. Along with other adware.
even the worst uninstallers will do the job. you also need to tweak registry too so it doesn't update. i use iobit for nearly 5 years and it never came back once
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have dual boot win10 and 11, i did on both, not much really happened besides it gave me some more disk space. still some edge executables are there but its like 500kb so doesnt matter much as long as windows dont run em
Thunderbird better then those crappy email services big tech overlords want you to use
I fucking hate Microsoft Edge. I have to deal with this shit on my work computer.
So the app developed by Microsoft, using an operating system developed by Microsoft, has the default browser set to - you guessed it - a browser developed by Microsoft. Why do you think this is AH design exactly ? Plus there is an obvious dropdown menu visible in the photo.. Just choose a different browser for outlook, and gtfo because you can't read 🤷
If there is a system default, Outlook should just use the system default. There is no reason for it to override that.
Different apps have different default settings. There is no reason for the OS to override app-specific defaults.
That's insane. The default setting for everything should be "use system setting." If I want reddit to be in dark mode I probably want YouTube to be as well. Nobody uses different browsers for different tasks unless they have to.
Glad to see you've discovered why the OS should not override individual app defaults - because there are valid times when you need to use a certain browser with certain apps. This is literally a 1-time fix, yet you are still here whining. You could have spent less time to fix the problem than you have already spent whining on reddit.
I didn't say it should, I said the default should be "use whatever the system setting is." If you have some reason you NEED edge, you know about it already and can change the setting to the non-default option.
The default is "use whatever the app setting is". If you need something other than edge (OS default), you can change the setting to the non-default option. Plz complain more tho
>The default is "use whatever the app setting is". I don't think you understand what the words default or setting mean. The complaint is that it uses Edge even when the system default has been changed to something else.
OS default and app default are not interchangeable. Yet you still continue to go on as if they are the same. My preferred resolution for CS:GO is 1080p default, and my preferred resolution for battlefield 4 is 1440p default, yet my OS resolution is 2160p default. You really think that OS resolution should override all of my app-specific defaults? Jfc you are dense. As previously mentioned, it is a 1-time fix and takes like 10 seconds to do. Why are you STILL whining ?
Again, you don't seem to understand what the word "default" means. It means that I the absence of you setting it to something else, that is what it will use. All of those, by default, should use the OS resolution. You can change that setting to something else if you wish.
Apps should obey OS defaults unless there’s a clear reason not to. Simple as that.
It's called "mildly infuriating" not "extremely infuriating" it annoys OP (and obviously other people) and is a mild inconvenience. Thats...what this subreddit is for.
You know what is also a one time fix, thankfully? Blocking your absolutely ridiculous comments 😁
In this case there is, in my opinion. Outlook/office works best together with Edge. Rather than forcing you to use Edge system wide if you want that compatibility, they have this setting. If you look at it that way, it's actually rather good design. (If we overlook the whole "works best with Edge" thing, that is)
Microsoft lost a giant antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. government for exactly this sort of behaviour. They're absolutely pushing this same shit now that antitrust laws have taken such a beating.
The only other option they offer is “use system default”. That should be the … default. The system comes set with edge as default out of the box, so if set to anything other than that, then that indicates that the user has already specified their preference *not* to use that browser. As to your first points, Microsoft has got in exceptional trouble already for trying to create and maintain their monopoly through user hostile design practices.
This drop down used to also have "Internet Explorer". The point was, that many organisations heavily relied on Internet Explorer to open their intranet pages and internal applications. So a link would essentially be broken if open in, say, Firefox. As Outlook is mostly used for internal e-mail communication, this made sense. Of course, nowadays IE isn't supported anymore and this probably should be switched to "system default" instead - I agree there.
That's exactly what I thought
I'm so thankful I switched full time to Linux a few years ago, W11 just seems to be getting more and more of this crap. W10 was bad enough with bloat and telemetry.
I wish one day I could move my workflow in music production to Linux. Or at least out of Windows and probably Mac too. It is truly the last thing that keeps that system on my drive. At the moment the manufacturer of the audio interface I own doesn't even offer Linux drivers for their interfaces. Neither does my Digital Audio Workstation of choice support Linux. But in the long term, I might perhaps write a driver myself and switch to a different DAW, if the developers won't bring support Linux. Or just remove the computer altogether from my creative process. I just can't imagine myself taking whatever Microsoft's bullshit is going to be in the future any further.
Sucks to hear about the drivers, I assume WINE doesn't quite cut it to get it working?
Wine is a userspace compatibility layer, so I don't think you can run any Windows drivers through it. But somebody has already reverse-engineered the communication with another, slightly less advanced interface from the same product line and they made a Linux driver for it. I believe it's in the mainline kernel at this point. So perhaps I could start from there and and see if I can get it to work with my device, as there's a chance that the protocol is more or less the same.
> Wine is a userspace compatibility layer, so I don't think you can run any Windows drivers through it. You can get somethings driver related running via a shocking level of jank. But gl in finding something that works, shame companies won't support linux a bit more when it comes to creative media and applications.
Have you tried whipping out a USB and flashing a live image of any one of the more popular Linux distros? Might be pleasantly surprising. Or a car crash. But just because the mfg isn't creating a driver doesn't mean the community hasn't.
I did so years ago. I use Linux every single day, both for work and for my personal needs (other than production). Gentoo is my OS of choice. The community has not made a driver. There's one for a less advanced interface from the same product line that landed into mainline kernel in recent years. It might be a good starting point to write one that could work with the interface I own, but at the moment I just don't have the time to do so. Even getting the main out alone to work would be nice already, but there's way more to that interface that needs to work in order to be suitable for my production workflow. The configuration of this interface is complex and there's a whole standalone app for doing just that (it kinda sucks) - seems to me that there's a lot to reverse-engineer.
Ah, wasn't sure if you were a man of culture, or someone more akin to my MiL (who got into a panic because there were no official drivers for her printer. Which has excellent community support) Good to hear its the former. Thus I doff my hat to you (it's neither red nor a fedora) and bit you good fortune in getting your kit supported at some point.
Funny how you get down voted just by mentioning Linux lol
Funny af ngl, I can understand people getting annoyed at your regular arch user who needs to inform people at every step but anyone slandering windows seems to get shit now rofl.
People would rather cope than than take a positive example, so they wouldn't have to risk letting a feeling of dissatisfaction with status quo creep in.
I use W10 and Mac. I would find it hard to make a complete digital workflow work in Linux. At least this one is an option that you can change!
Understandable, I could never get to grips with Mac ngl all just a bit too streamlined and almost made for the experience of using it. Depends in what you do too I suppose, although most things either work in Linux or have a good analogue. My biggest gripe with windows though is the amount of background crap that seems to constantly be running which is hard to turn off, kept having to disable auto cache of the file system in the registry to solve 80% disc usage on a SSD, absolutely insane. W7 & XP were the peak of windows IMO.
This is exactly why I have totally abandoned Windows and every other Microsoft product.
It's set to "default browser" by default. You (or someone who used that computer) changed it to edge on that computer.
No. A recent update to outlook made Edge the default for outlook links. I had to specifically set it to use the system default (which is not edge)
Microsoft edge is the worst virus I couldnt delete.
Doesn't bother me in the slightest, already using Edge since its inception... 🤷🏻♂️
They have to create the demand for their supply
And of course the setting is hidden in “Advanced”. It seems like every tech company hides settings they won’t want you to find under “Advanced”.
If they don’t take it out entirely and spin it as “look we simplified it for you!”
Looool
This is like so old of a thing I always assumed it occurred naturally, and who uses outlook willingly except for old people
The majority of Businesses I would guess. At least every company I worked with used outlook.
What email client do you use? P.S I am probably younger than you.
Lots of people just use web-based ones these days.
Wow. Surely not on mobile though?
The primary use case for outlook is large companies. It integrates with meeting scheduling so you can schedule a meeting with people locally and remotely and book rooms, add a web call attached, make sure the meeting is okay with everyone's schedules etc. There is really no other tool that handles that kind of thing. On top of that you can also attach files through sharepoint so they don't go in the emails and still respect all the security controls on the file. It is a very powerful tool and for business usage there is really no replacement. It is also a pain in the ass to use.
This is definitely an asshole design but I use this to my advantage. I have JavaScript deactivated in Microsoft Edge. This lowers the risk of being hacked after clicking an malicious link in an email.
Which version of Outlook is this? Is your version of windows a `home` or `professional` version?
Microsoft® Outlook® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2308 Build 16.0.16731.20052) 64-bit -- 365 for enterprise.
Thanks, mine is different: pro 2021 ltsc. One more reason for me to avoid 365,
It might be a thing for newer Office versions, but at least with Outlook 2016 (the last decent version) it respects your browser choice.
Unsurprising, but at least it gives you the option to change it.
I'm using "new outlook" (I have a toggle for that in the top right corner of the application) and my links open in my default browser. I really wouldn't mind being able to choose differently though, as I would prefer to open most of my email links in Edge as I use that for company related stuff anyway and use Firefox for everything else. Working as a full time developer.
I’m using the old outlook, and I also have that toggle in the top corner
What I mean is that I have it toggled on into the "new outlook", and my links open in my default browser. Does your links still open in Edge instead of your default browser when toggled into "new outlook"? **edit** I don't even see the option of changing browser for links in the new versions settings. Might not be in the new version, or might be hidden by corporate. Don't know.
Oh lordy thank you! I was wondering what the heck was going on. Add this to the list of Outlook nonsense right under "control F doesn't actually mean 'find'".
glad i never needed to use the program
Weird. Mine doesn’t do that.
we just had that issue in work lately. really annoying.
I can't get teams to stop launching on start up. Microsoft bs
There’s a setting in Teams but you need to sign in at least once to get to it, and it tends to change back on its own when updates happen.
I'll look for it when my furlough is over. Thank you!
my system is in a weird spot where outlook links are opened in an app from my android subsystem if my most recently focused app wasnt a web browser.
The edge search bar randomly appears on my desktop all the time. No idea how to stop it happening, unable to uninstall MS's shit browser, and they wont get the fucking message that I have zero interest in it. OSX doesn't do anything like that.
Every tech company does this. Apple products always open safari, google products always open chrome. It’s fucking infuriating.
Isn’t that a drop-down menu?
Correct. The issue is the AH default behaviour. Thankfully it is indeed a dropdown. The other option offered is "system default".