This is a frequent problem with Outlook 2016.  When opening outlook, you receive the following errors:

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.

System resources are critically low. Close some windows.

Cannot Start Microsoft Outlook, Cannot open the Outlook Window. The set of folders cannot be opened. The information Store could not be opened.

This is happening because the local hidden XML files containing the autodiscover information have been corrupted or otherwise contain bad data, sometimes as a result of an autodiscover DNS record being changed some time in the past.

Browse to:

C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\16  (the ’16′ folder is hidden, so change the view setting to see it)

Delete or move any XML file you find that contains the affected email address in its name.

Now Outlook should open OK.

If the problem keeps coming back, marking the corresponding XML file as read-only after it is fixed will stop that.

HINT: Here’s how to get the required XML manually if you have to recreate this file yourself:

Open Outlook with any working account, even a dummy temporary profile.   Then, locate the Outlook icon in the system tray by the clock, hold down CTRL and Right Click, then select “Test E-Mail AutoConfiguration.”

Enter the problem email address and password and click the test button. When it’s finished, if there are office365.com settings within the results, click over to the XML tab and copy everything there into a replacement XML file in your %localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\16 folder.

If you have multiple clients behind a NAT router which is connected to another network segment which contains a file server, only one of those clients will be able to use the server’s files at a time because, to the server, all these clients come in on the same IP address.

This happens because SMB is designed to assume any new connection from the same IP address as an existing connection is a duplicate and it tears down the first one.

The easiest fix is to simply block port 445 (direct hosting) at the NAT router so this traffic cannot reach the server from these clients behind the router.  This forces the use of NetBIOS over TCPIP instead of SMB.

The same Edge engine is responsible the start button in Windows 10.  If both stop working or you have problems starting the Edge browser, check the permissions for this registry key:

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppContainer\Storage\microsoft.microsoftedge_8wekyb3d8bbwe

If the permissions for the third “Account Unknown” entry S-1-15-3-3624051433… are Read Only, add Full Control.

This will fix the problem immediately without a reboot.

Windows 10, by default, monitors everything you do on your computer and sends it to Microsoft ostensibly for marketing purposes. Some of these options can be disabled using the Privacy screens, where you can turn of most of this. However, they will silently turn themselves back on and not all spying features can be controlled this way.

One third-party product that helps with this is Spybot Anti-Beacon. In general, you want to enable all blocking options except those that you know will interfere with how you use the computer. For example, don’t block OneDrive items if you plan to use OneDrive and don’t block Bing IPs if you use anything related to Bing (i.e., home page, search engine, etc.)

If you’re finding that there is no “Outlook” option in Quickbooks’ preferences for “Send Forms” but, instead, only Web mail and Quickbooks email, the following will put it back:

Edit C:\Windows\WIN.INI and insert the following lines:

[MAIL]
MAPI=1
MAPIX=1

After saving this modified file, start Quickbooks and you will see the “Outlook” option has returned.

We had a computer which could not run Windows Update because BITS would not start (error 2147014790, but could be others.)  MSE would not update either and the Event Log also had various other errors including “The IPsec Policy Agent service terminated with the following error: The requested service provider could not be loaded or initialized.”

Resetting the IP stack fixed everything:

1. Start the Command Prompt window as Administrator
2. Netsh winsock reset
3. Netsh int ipv4 reset
4. Netsh int ipv6 reset (if you use IPv6)
5. Restart the computer

Beware of purchasing Wondershare products including: MobileGo, MirrorGo and others (www.wondershare.net.)  While their software seems to be OK, they intentionally make the ordering process confusing and they will continue to charge you annually for what should have been a one-time purchase in the hopes that you won’t notice it and pay anyway. Such nefarious behavior makes us question what else they do to the computers on which their software is installed.

When connected to a computer using Remote Desktop, you will sometimes find that the screen goes black and, after a while, you will get a “reconnecting” message and then it will return to normal.  This can happen anytime but seems to be more common when your session is minimized or otherwise idle for a while. We have seen this with both server and workstation hosts, mostly Windows 8 and Server 2008, 2012.

UPDATE: The crossed-out steps below never permanently fixed this problem, which occurred when the hosting machine (the machine to which remote users were connecting) was using a Comcast Internet connection.  Instead, what did fix it was replacing the Comcast-supplied Netgear Cable modem with an ARRIS SURFboard SB6183 DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem.  It is likely that any similar replacement modem will fix it.

Bitmap compression seems to be the culprit here.

On the RDP host:

1. GPEDIT.MSC

2. Navigate to:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Remote Session Environment

3. Enable “Configure compression for RemoteFX data” and set RDP compression algorithm to “Balances memory and network bandwidth.”

4. Click OK to save this change.

Sometimes it will also help to turn off “Persistent bitmap caching” on the RDP client (Experience tab.)