How Outlook Autodiscover Works

How Outlook Autodiscover Works

Outlook 2007/2010/2013 uses the autodiscover function for the following list of information

• The user’s display name
• Separate connection settings for internal and external connectivity
• The location of the user’s Mailbox server
• The URLs for various Outlook features that govern functionality such as free/busy information, Unified Messaging, and the offline address book
• Outlook Anywhere server settings

All the above information is taken in XML file and provided to the Outlook client by using the following method

• SCP lookup
• HTTPS root domain query
• HTTPS Autodiscover domain query
• HTTP redirect method
• SRV record query
• Local XML file
• cached URL in the Outlook profile (new for Outlook 2013)

To disable the autodiscover functionality of the Outlook add the key and make it as 1 under the following registry path

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover

• PreferLocalXML
• ExcludeHttpRedirect
• ExcludeHttpsAutoDiscoverDomain
• ExcludeHttpsRootDomain
• ExcludeScpLookup
• ExcludeSrvRecord
• ExcludeLastKnownGoodURL (only applies to Outlook 2013)

Enable Logging in Outlook and you trace the file OlkDisc.log located in %temp% folder to understand on how Outlook Autodiscover works