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
