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Windows IT

Microsoft is Killing off Windows 11's Mail and Calendar Apps By the End of the Year (theverge.com) 81

Posted by msmash from the app-graveyard dept.
Microsoft is planning to no longer support the Windows Mail, Calendar, and People apps later this year. The Verge: The software giant has been moving existing users of these apps over to the new Outlook for Windows app in recent months, and now it has set an end of support date for the Mail, Calendar, and People apps of December 31st.

Once the apps reach end of support later this year, Microsoft warns that users who haven't moved to the new Outlook app "will no longer be able to send and receive email using Windows Mail and Calendar."

Microsoft has been rolling out the new Outlook for Windows app for years, with it officially reaching the general availability stage in August. The new web-based Outlook is designed to eventually replace the full desktop version of Outlook too, and Microsoft plans to provide enterprise customers a 12-month notice before it starts to move people away from the desktop version of Outlook.
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Microsoft is Killing off Windows 11's Mail and Calendar Apps By the End of the Year More

Microsoft is Killing off Windows 11's Mail and Calendar Apps By the End of the Year

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  • "new" Outlook is awful (Score:5, Informative)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:09PM (#64940407)
    I have never used their Calendar app but the new Outlook is garbage. And comes with ads.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Add to it the case that it also creates a total confusion in naming with the commercial Outlook but not the same functionality.

      • Re:"new" Outlook is awful (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nuckfuts ( 690967 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:41PM (#64940513)

        Add to it the case that it also creates a total confusion in naming with the commercial Outlook but not the same functionality.

        Absolutely right. It shows up as "Outlook (New)", which makes users click on it because, new is better - right? I'm having to right-click and select "Uninstall" for many users because it doesn't work correctly with Exchange on-prem.

        • It also lacks features businesses require. Talk about total garbage. Slow, hard to use, lacking features, Must be a Microsoft product

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sique ( 173459 )
            I tried it a year ago, and it was missing the ability to add group mail accounts, which is a really important business feature. So I was reverting to old Outlook, which I still use.
          • if you are a business why the fuck would you be using the free version that ships with windows. Businesses use the full featured version from office.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Targon ( 17348 )

              Notice how the article says that Microsoft plans to get rid of Outlook desktop app at some point in the future. That's going to be a major problem. I like Mailbird, but it's not quite what larger businesses look for. I'll have to see if it supports Public Folders.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chefren ( 17219 )

        Revenge of the Son of Outlook Express?

        • Revenge of the Son of Outlook Express?

          Hey, Outlook Express supported IMAP and e-mail certificates and functioned as a Usenet newsreader.

          "New Outlook" has fewer functions than Juno Webmail.

    • The URL hyperlink address showing when you hovered over a link in the new Outlook had been broken for months, they just fixed it a few days ago.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      And comes with ads.

      That is probably the reason for it. But unless they want to _really_ piss off a rather large part of their user-base, it remains possible to use other mail clients.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        And comes with ads.

        That is probably the reason for it. But unless they want to _really_ piss off a rather large part of their user-base, it remains possible to use other mail clients.

        "possible" is getting a work out here. They've also made it possible to block mail clients based on the client. A company using exchange server can enforce/require use of XOAUTH2 for authentication and authorization. Here's an example of how to set that up in Alpine (modern fork of the venerable UW Pine): https://alpineapp.email/alpine... [alpineapp.email]

        As part of the XOAUTH2 process, the email client must pass its own certificate to the server. You can create and register your own cert, or use the one distributed with you

    • Re:"new" Outlook is awful (Score:5, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @03:08PM (#64940609)

      the new Outlook is garbage. And comes with ads.

      So... the outlook is bleak. :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Faw ( 33935 )

      It also wants to sync all emails in your server to the cloud. I already have a server, I don't want to do that. I had Mailbird with a lifetime license and they made a new version and they told everyone 'screw you and your lifetime license' . You have to buy again and new version has no lifetime license. Bought em client and I'm happy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )

        That's not entirely correct. The lifetime license for Mailbird doesn't give free upgrades to new versions, but it doesn't require paying monthly. If you don't need the new features of the new version, then the lifetime model still works. I'm in the same boat for Mailbird, but since I don't need a lot of the newer features, I didn't NEED to go to the new version. I still like Mailbird a lot more than I like Outlook.

    • I tried it about 9 months ago. I think it assumes every idiot has a gmail or outlook.com account these days. Trying to convince the tool to use an IMAP server with one login and password and an SMTP server with a different login and password was beyond its capabilities. To be fair Thunderbird had this problem too but if you fuck around with that one long enough you can eventually actually get it working after jumping through some ridiculous hoops.

      • It doesn't support import/export/mounting of PST files, or any other form of local data file.
        It doesn't support on-prem Exchange, or any other MAPI-based mail server.
        It doesn't support public folders.
        It doesn't support ICS-based shared calendars.
        It doesn't support any form of plug-in or extension.
        It doesn't support the creation of any sort of rules or automatic mail flow.
        It doesn't support VBA or macros, or any other form of scripting language of any kind (like Python, which modern Excel supports).
        It doesn'

  • If more and more desktop software goes into the cloud, why not just ditch the OS used to reach it all and consider yourself "released" from software investments and try something new?

    • Chromebook in a nutshell.

    • Re:At Some Point, You Have To Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:44PM (#64940521) Homepage Journal

      That's what I've been wondering. There are things you can do with native office apps that you can't do with the web versions, but I use none of those features, so my job could reasonably be done on a chromebook. We are only allowed to use edge or chrome, so I would still be able to use the same browser. The only thing that our IS department is getting out of keeping us on Windows is that they can use management tools they're familiar with, but chromebooks can be centrally managed and crucially do not require as much management to begin with as they are not such a shit show. Windows is the source of most of my daily frustrations so I wish they would just go to chromebooks already, it would make ten times more sense.

      Besides office the only native application I use is a fucking 3270 emulator, there are probably dozens of those for chromebooks, but if not there are also web apps for that too.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        ... chromebooks can be centrally managed and crucially do not require as much management to begin with as they are not such a shit show.

        There are no rational reasons. My guess is fear of change and fear of being exposed as incompetent. The only reason my teaching laptop is Windows is that Linux seems to still occasionally crash beamers with crappy firmware and those are sometimes really expensive ones.

    • Re:At Some Point, You Have To Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @03:01PM (#64940587)

      That is what usually happens. This move from client-side-computing to server-side-computing is not new after all. It has now gone back and forth for 4 or 5 times, maybe more.

    • This sounds a lot like giving up. You can ditch Microsoft if it makes you feel better, but if you move everything to the cloud, you'll still have the same problem -- other people holding you and your data hostage.

      I'll stick to a solution that keeps my data on my machine, thank you.

  • Nothing like microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:11PM (#64940419)

    to force you into doing what you don't want to do. I hate you microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      to force you into doing what you don't want to do. I hate you microsoft.

      Why? They don't hate the public. They absolutely love what they do to the public!

      • I don't buy software from the public, I do buy software from Microsoft, but Microsoft is more interested in me providing value to themselves then they are providing value to me and I hate that.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      In a more general context, Microsoft is a nice demonstration of some things deeply wrong with the human race. After all, they would never have amounted to anything without a ton of willing victims.

    • Microsoft needlessly being a jerk is why I stopped using Windows and went full-time to Linux. Linux is not a utopia but whenever someone says, "no, not like that" I don't have to listen to them.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yep. I switched to Linux in 2008.

        In 2014, I didn't like the way my distro/DE combo was going. I didn't whinge, and I also didn't just put up with it, I switched to another distro/DE. That was fine for ten years, but this year the same thing happened. So I'm now on my third distro/DE combo and I'm quite content.

        That's the thing with Linux. You don't have to put up with shit, you can just switch distro/DE (and keep on running the same applications).

        If anyone thinks that sounds like a pain, I'd like to emphasi

  • Let me guess (Score:3)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:12PM (#64940421)

    Outlook for Windows is going to be made default on the next major Windows 11 release, even if I never used Windows Mail to begin with.

    • You just said why they killing a default mail app, it’s not used. Outlook at least for enterprise is very good. Why you need a mail/calendar app when outlook already exists. Roll that staff into enterprise

      • Outlook is barely OK. People use it primarily because they are being forced to by their employer.
        But they are not just killing Windows Mail, they are replacing it with a new Outlook which only has name in common with the "enterprise" product which is part of MS Office. They confusingly call it "The new Outlook for Windows". I wonder how long it will keep that name.

    • Outlook is already the default mail app on Windows 11. I just did a search for "mail" in my start menu and I get Outlook (2016) and "Outlook (new)". It seems the old mail app wasn't even installed (or at least is somehow hidden) from my current Windows 11 install.

  • I'll be retired (Score:3)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:30PM (#64940477) Journal

    Nice to know if you're still using Outlook, 2029 is the cutoff date. I'll be retired by then and won't have to deal with the twin nightmares of users and forced Microsoft "upgrades".

    They can enshittify all they want. I just won't have to (directly) deal with them any longer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Even worse - your bank will require you to use the Microsoft environment by then.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        They tried that a while ago with me. Turns out my bank cannot reliably detect VM environments (nobody can).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      Nice to know if you're still using Outlook, 2029 is the cutoff date. I'll be retired by then and won't have to deal with the twin nightmares of users and forced Microsoft "upgrades".

      They can enshittify all they want. I just won't have to (directly) deal with them any longer.

      I look forward to the day that I don't have to mess with their shit anymore... Only 15-ish more years...

  • and nothing of value was lost.

  • Thunderbird (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @02:56PM (#64940571)

    Thunderbird exists and is generally better than webmail abortion that is this particular "outlook" which has nothing to do with actual office outlook.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I second that. And it does not start to behave erratically when you have more than three office365 accounts either.

      • > when you have more than three office365 accounts

        Ouch.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. One time I had to delete accounts cached in some obscure Windows OS place to get it to work again. Fortunately it is mostly only for streamed lectures with the slides definitely not PowerPoint.

    • Thunderbird exists and is generally better than webmail abortion that is this particular "outlook" which has nothing to do with actual office outlook.

      I'd also like to throw a suggestion for Pegasus Mail [pmail.com] into the ring as well, a robust independent email client that's been around since Windows 3.X; it's still going and being updated after all these years.

      • You made me curious and searched screenshots of Pegasus, it indeed look like an app from 20 years ago

  • Pathetic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mick232 ( 1610795 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @03:43PM (#64940699)
    When your new product is so bad you have to force users to start using it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That has been going on for a while with Microsoft. Just think of Win11.

    • Not really. You're not forced to use Outlook, they just aren't continuing their old mail client and forcing users off that. Virtually all software companies do not maintain two programs with the same function in parallel, though it is a dick move to disable it.

      Now's a good time to advertise all the FOSS alternatives.

  • Spyware (Score:3)

    by qbast ( 1265706 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @03:44PM (#64940703)
    "Outlook for windows" is basically a spyware according to an article [heise.de] it will transfer your login credentials for any email account you set up to MS and you explicitly give permission to MS to suck all your email and calendar data, then send to MS datacenter. After that it's whatever MS decides: AI training, NSA (obviously), ad companies.
  • Finance wise... it fits to persuade customers to use O365
    Productiveness wise... it makes sense not to have 3 separate apps when there's already a single app that takes care of mail/cal/contacts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Productivity? With MS tools? My experience is that all the Office/Outlook/Windows/Edge crap stands in your way and decreases overall productivity rather markedly.

      • Then use Goggle Suites, OpenOffice, anything you want... nobody standing in your way. I'm only talking about MS products, relevant to this thread.
      • My experience is that all the Office/Outlook/Windows/Edge crap stands in your way and decreases overall productivity rather markedly.

        ^^^ This. A thousand times, this!

        I was forced to use Windows 10 yesterday, and my productivity was zero till I switched to a machine running XP.

    • The "New" Outlook isn't Office 365. In fact what's really weird is that Microsoft hides the shortcut to the original Outlook. They are actually pushing their paying customers to use the crappy free version of Outlook.

  • I just came here to... (Score:4, Funny)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2024 @06:02PM (#64941193)
    ...passively aggressively tell you all I use Linux.

  • So I need to give Microsoft my email login details, for them to store in their data centres in plain text?

  • I have news for Microsoft and their mail client users: Thunderbird is back and is kicking.

    • Thunderbird is back and is kicking.

      Damned right! Last time I tried to use it, it gave me an "A" grade kicking!

  • Not the greatest but it has calendar, contacts, can handle multiple mail accounts and it does not have ads other than the occasional 'donate' button.

  • Replace != kill off

    Seriously. The FUD is thick in this one.

    The warning has been there for over a year.

  • it has been two years now when i click "try the new outlook" it then refuses to let me log in, saying it does not yet support business accounts lmafo.

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