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It is a SBS 2011 domain, single server. They are using Exchange. Whenever a new profile is set up Outlook automatically autodiscovers the Exchange Server and configures Outlook. I am going to be migrating them to Office 365 and don't want this autodiscover to keep automatically configuring Outlook to the Exchange Server. I basically want to disable autodiscover on the SBS 2011 Server.

There are a million different articles about it and each one seems different. Has anyone actually done this on a SBS 2011 Server and can confirm that it works? What are the steps?

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  • We always migrate them with autodiscover on, then disable the exchange server after the migration. Autodiscover on a domain with exchange server will always catch it, so you just have to be careful when you create the account. Optionally, give everyone a faux email address in their AD so outlook will try to resolve that email address, fail and then present you with an input field.
    – LPChip
    Nov 20, 2018 at 15:35
  • I am missing something. I have seen Outlook reconfigure itself mid stream back to the Exchange server because autodiscover is still pointing to the Exchange Server. What do you mean "you have to be careful when you create an account"? The accounts on the Exchange Server are already created...... can you elaborate a little?
    – user483458
    Nov 20, 2018 at 15:55
  • Exactly that, that it reverts back to the exchange server. You don't want that. If you set the AD to a fake email address, it should not happen.
    – LPChip
    Nov 20, 2018 at 15:56
  • Still not clear. You are suggesting changing their existing email addresses in the AD? That would be difficult for a couple reasons. 1) it is doing a cutover migration and 2) it would merely re-associate the changed email address with the same user wouldn't it? any idea how to simply disable the autodiscover feature on the Exchange Server?
    – user483458
    Nov 20, 2018 at 16:02
  • You can safely change/set the email property in general tab in AD without altering email functionality. But In the organisation, outlook will then check and try to automatically configure using that email address. It will fail and that allows you to configure it manually without disabling exchange. I'm not saying you must alter the email address in exchange management console, only AD. From [email protected] to [email protected] for example
    – LPChip
    Nov 20, 2018 at 16:33

1 Answer 1

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The way to do this after the move to Office365 is to change the internal Autodiscover value to point to Office365.

set-clientaccessserver servername -AutodiscoverServiceInternalURI https://autodiscover.outlook.com/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml

The clients will still do Autodiscover, but will be pointed straight to the Office365 service. If you remove Exchange from the SBS then the clients continue to go to the correct place.

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  • If that link worked :) that would be the cats meow. That is exactly what I would like to do. How about a working link? BWT why would you want to wait until after the migration? I am doing a cutover and would think I would want to change the autodiscover to Office 365 pretty much right away.....
    – user483458
    Nov 21, 2018 at 13:44
  • That link does work. You cannot browse to it though because your browser isn't Outlook. The information returned is dynamic. You wait until after the migration is complete because you may need clients to connect to the old server. I mainly do hybrid deployments, so Outlook and Exchange sort themselves out.
    – Sembee
    Nov 21, 2018 at 17:10

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