Steps to recreate Outlook profiles after the migration

What is an Outlook profile?

An Outlook profile includes accounts, data files and settings which specify where your email messages are saved. A single mail profile that consists multiple mail accounts and different account types such as POP3, IMAP, Exchange, and Outlook Hotmail Connector accounts.

Why to recreate an Outlook profile?

After migration, the Outlook cannot connect to the new server and the below error message will be prompted.

"Outlook cannot log on. Verify you are connected to the network and are using the proper server and mailbox name. The Microsoft Exchange information service in your profile is missing required information. Modify your profile to ensure that you are using the correct Microsoft Exchange information service."

This is because the settings of the Auto discover service made prior to migration will be cached in the registry.

How to solve it?

Create a new Outlook profile to ensure that Outlook will connect to proper Microsoft Exchange information service and set it as the default one.

Create a new Outlook profile

Profiles can be created for a single user or for all the users.

Steps to create a new Outlook profile for a single user:

• Open the Control panel.
• Select the Mail (32-bit) Icon.

  

• Click the Show Profiles...

  

• Click the Add enter the new profile name and click the 'OK'.

  

• Complete all the prompts to add your account.
• Select Always use this profile and select the new profile from the dropdown.

  

• Open Outlook and connect to the target server.

Steps to create a new Outlook profile for all users:

Outlook profile can be created and set to default by creating a simple batch file script that adds nodes to the windows registry. To create a new outlook profile for all the users, run the script on multiple systems through Group Policy.

In the below example we will execute as a user logon script, Group policy object GPO to execute when the user logon or start the computer.

A batch file script to create a new Outlook profile

• Open Notepad copy and paste the below code as per your Outlook version.

  Outlook 2010

  reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\<name>"
  reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles" /v DefaultProfile /t REG_SZ /d "<name>" /F
  reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options" /v PickLogonProfile /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f

  Outlook 2013

  reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Profiles\<name>
  reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook" /v DefaultProfile /t REG_SZ /d "<name>" /F

  Outlook 2016

  reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\<name>
  reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook" /v DefaultProfile /t REG_SZ /d "<name>" /F

• Save the file as a BAT file.
• Give permission for the BAT file in the network location accessible for all users.
  Note: <name> replace this with a new Outlook profile.