CoNetrix

Blog: Microsoft Outlook

We have a customer who is in the process of migrating from one domain ("domain 1") to another so the domain name that will match their current company name ("domain 2"). They have moved a majority of their client PCs from domain 1 to domain 2. The Exchange servers are still in domain 1 and using credentials for domain 1.

After moving to domain 2, users started reporting intermittent Outlook connectivity issues and that they were unable to search in Outlook. Domain 1 has an internal primary DNS zone for their public email domain. In testing, we found that Outlook functioned properly when not connected to the internal network and for client PCs still on domain 1. I originally added conditional forwarders for the public email domains to forward queries from domain 2 to the internal zone on domain 1. This resolved the connectivity issues, but their Outlook search still did not work. I removed the conditional forwarders and duplicated the internal primary DNS zones on domain 2, which resolved the issues.

Microsoft Outlook,
 

The First Problem
After I installed Cisco Webex Teams, Skype began to crash each time I launched it.  I found some articles stating you can only have one application use Outlook for status updates and if you have both Webex Teams and Skype, it can cause Skype to crash (see https://collaborationhelp.cisco.com/article/en-us/gk4yog and https://collaborationhelp.cisco.com/article/en-us/yf1gc7).  My guess is this is what was causing Skype to crash.  However, it sounds like this issue didn't occur with others in our company so what was different with my install?  Well, my install was a little unique as I apparently already had a "personal" Webex account from when we used Webex years ago for webinars within our company.  With a personal account, you have options to integrate with Microsoft Outlook – my guess is one of these settings was enabled prior to "converting" to an enterprise account (with enterprise, these settings are not available).
 
The Solution to the First Problem
  1. First, I uninstalled Cisco Webex Teams.  After uninstalling Webex Teams, Skype would work fine, but if I reinstalled Webex Teams, Skype would crash again.
  2. Second, I tried installing Webex Teams and then running a "repair" on Outlook.  This seemed to fix the issue with Webex Teams and Skype (I could have both installed and Skype would not crash); however, this created my second problem – Outlook no longer showed "online status" or "presence" for company users (see internal staff status when I send emails in the "To" field).
The Second Problem
After running the repair on Outlook to fix the problem with Skype crashing when Webex Teams was installed, Outlook no longer display the "online status" or "presence" – while this doesn't seem like a critical issues, it has helped me ensure I don't send internal emails to customers with similar names in the past, so I wanted to get it fixed.
 
The Solution to the Second Problem
  1. First, I found the setting where you can enable online status (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-skype-with-outlook-to-display-a-contact-s-presence-information-b1509222-2c5d-4cd4-bff7-508d2b6f410d) but it was checked.
  2. Second, I researched the Registry settings for Skype and Cisco Webex Teams and found the following two settings I needed to change in order for Outlook to show "online status"
    1. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IM Provider
      1. Had to change the DefaultIMApp from "Cisco Spark" to "Lync"
    2. Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IM Providers\Cisco Spark
      1. Had to change "UpAndRunning" from 2 to 0
Skype for Business, Webex Teams, Microsoft Outlook,