This is especially handy if you encounter issues with auto-discover attempting to connect to the Exchange server. Here’s a quick guide that walks you through the process of manually configuring Outlook for Office 365, on both Windows 7 and 8.

    1. Go to https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com
    2. Go to the Office 365 tab
    3. Check Outlook Autodiscover
    4. Click Next
    5. Input your information
    6. Click Perform Test
    7. On the result page, click Expand All
    8. Look for the first  <Server> tag

You should see a value that looks something like 686c9881-008b-49f5-83ab-ef158c37c421@domain.com. This is your host name – you’ll need this later, so copy and paste it into Notepad or write it down.

If you do not have auto-discover enabled:

  1. Open PowerShell and enter the following commands:
  2. Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
  3. $LiveCred = Get-Credential (use your ADMIN credentials)
  4. $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
  5. Import-PSSession $Session
  6. Get-Mailbox -Identity user_name | select ExchangeGUID

The value displayed will be the host name you saw in the first set of steps.

Step #2 – Create new Outlook profile (Windows 7)

  1. Open Control Panel
  2. Click Mail
  3. Click Show Profiles  and type a name for the profile
  4. Click Add
  5. Click OK
  6. Click Manually configure server settings or additional server types
  7. Click Next
  8. Select Microsoft Exchange
  9. Click Next

For Windows 8:

  1. Open Control Panel
  2. Click the View by drop-down menu (set to Category by default)
  3. Select Small Icons
  4. Click Mail
  5. Click OK
  6. Click Manually configure server settings or additional server types
  7. Click Next
  8. Select Microsoft Exchange
  9. Click Next

In the Server box, type the host address that you noted in Step 1.

  1. Make sure that the Use Cached Exchange Mode option is selected.
  2. Enter your email address in the field User Name
  3. Click More Settings
  4. If you are prompted with an error that the action cannot be completed, click OK
  5. Click on the Security tab, and then select Configure Security Settings and switch the network security option to “Anonymous Authentication”
  6. Click on the Connection tab
  7. Select Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP
  8. Click Exchange Proxy Settings

In the Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange box, type: outlook.office365.com.

  1. Make sure you’ve enabled “only connect to proxy servers that have this principal name in their certificate,” and then type msstd:outlook.com.
  2. Click to select the on fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP check box, and select the on slow networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP check box.
  3. In the Proxy authentication settings, click Basic Authentication.
  4. Click OK twice.
  5. Click Check Names After the server name and user name are displayed with an underline, click next.
  6. Click Finish.