I'm currently running a test environment to run a trial migration from Exchange 2010 to 2013. All of this appears to have been successful. Our only major change to the setup is to change our internal and external URL to a single generic URL:

Old Internal URL: london.testenv.lan

Old External URL:london.testenv.co.uk

New Internal/External URL: mail.testenv.co.uk

The above appears to work fine, my one major annoyance at the moment is any mailboxes opening Outlook for the first time on a PC appear to have problems configuring the account through the wizard. I've edited and imported a PRF file into Outlook but no matter what I set the home server name to (tried internal and external DNS names) it appears to fail with the below error:

To get out of this I have to just keep clicking cancel (gives various other associated errors).

But, if I then simply delete the profile from the Mail control panel app and reopen Outlook I get the Startup Wizard which works fine! It goes through, finds my email address and then sets all the green ticks. As shown below:

So it's obviously able to look up the settings with no problems. I'm really puzzled by this one and would appreciate any help! I'm guessing this is more an Outlook issue than an Exchange issue.

Thanks

Andrew

Hi Andrew:

Based on your description, RPC encryption requirement might be a possible cause of this issue. We can try approaches below:

    Method 1: Disable the encryption requirement on all CAS servers

    Method 2: Manually update or create your Outlook profile with RPC encryption

    Method 3: Deploy a Group Policy setting to update existing Outlook profiles with

Detailed steps are all in KB3032395. Let me know the results, thank you.

Unfortunately this doesn't appear to have worked. In the test environment I have two 2013 servers, a CAS and a mailbox. When running the command Get-RpcClientAccessServer it only returns the mailbox server, I believe Exchange 2013 is moving away from RPC anyway. I went ahead and set EncryptionRequired to False but this made no difference. I unchecked the encryption requirement in the Outlook profile, this also made no difference.

So, both ends were originally set to use encryption and this still failed. From the first screenshot I posted, if I click the 'Check Name' button I get prompted for credentials repeatedly. This is really confusing me!

Thanks

Hi Andrew,

As we exclude Server side settings. Creating new profile also works fine. I suspect it might has something to do with the PRF configuration. Do you mind to send me the PRF file through mail to: ibsofc@microsoft.com? So I can take a look. If there any confidential information, like server DNS, you can replace it with a test url.

• Edited by Chloe WangModerator 19 hours 58 minutes ago

Hi Andrew:

Got your PRF file, I will check it and keep you posted if i find anything, thank you.

Hi Andrew,

As we exclude Server side settings. Creating new profile also works fine. I suspect it might has something to do with the PRF configuration. Do you mind to send me the PRF file through mail to: ibsofc@microsoft.com? So I can take a look. If there any confidential information, like server DNS, you can replace it with a test url.

• Edited by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:30 AM

Hi Andrew,

As we exclude Server side settings. Creating new profile also works fine. I suspect it might has something to do with the PRF configuration. Do you mind to send me the PRF file through mail to: ibsofc@microsoft.com? So I can take a look. If there any confidential information, like server DNS, you can replace it with a test url.

• Edited by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:30 AM

Hi Andrew,

As we exclude Server side settings. Creating new profile also works fine. I suspect it might has something to do with the PRF configuration. Do you mind to send me the PRF file through mail to: ibsofc@microsoft.com? So I can take a look. If there any confidential information, like server DNS, you can replace it with a test url.

• Edited by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:30 AM

After scratching my head for the last few days I've made some progress. In Exchange 2013 the long GUID was required as the server name in the Outlook prompt (first screenshot), when I enter this full address the mailbox is discovered!

So I deleted the custom14.prf file from the 'Microsoft Office', which removed the customisation. Outlook then runs through the default profile wizard (screenshot 2) every time and successfully detects the mailbox. So I believe this is the solution, because of Exchange 2013's long GUID based server names for mailboxes the PRF file can no longer be used.

• Marked as answer by AndyH16 15 hours 6 minutes ago

After scratching my head for the last few days I've made some progress. In Exchange 2013 the long GUID was required as the server name in the Outlook prompt (first screenshot), when I enter this full address the mailbox is discovered!

So I deleted the custom14.prf file from the 'Microsoft Office', which removed the customisation. Outlook then runs through the default profile wizard (screenshot 2) every time and successfully detects the mailbox. So I believe this is the solution, because of Exchange 2013's long GUID based server names for mailboxes the PRF file can no longer be used.

• Marked as answer by AndyH16 Friday, April 10, 2015 4:21 PM

After scratching my head for the last few days I've made some progress. In Exchange 2013 the long GUID was required as the server name in the Outlook prompt (first screenshot), when I enter this full address the mailbox is discovered!

So I deleted the custom14.prf file from the 'Microsoft Office', which removed the customisation. Outlook then runs through the default profile wizard (screenshot 2) every time and successfully detects the mailbox. So I believe this is the solution, because of Exchange 2013's long GUID based server names for mailboxes the PRF file can no longer be used.

• Marked as answer by AndyH16 Friday, April 10, 2015 4:21 PM

After scratching my head for the last few days I've made some progress. In Exchange 2013 the long GUID was required as the server name in the Outlook prompt (first screenshot), when I enter this full address the mailbox is discovered!

So I deleted the custom14.prf file from the 'Microsoft Office', which removed the customisation. Outlook then runs through the default profile wizard (screenshot 2) every time and successfully detects the mailbox. So I believe this is the solution, because of Exchange 2013's long GUID based server names for mailboxes the PRF file can no longer be used.

• Marked as answer by AndyH16 Friday, April 10, 2015 4:21 PM

Hi Andrew:

Really appreciate for your sharing of information, it will benefit for others in the forum.

Sorry for my belated response. I have been setting up a test environment from my side. Yesterday I tested the .PRF file. I changed some settings in section 4 as below. It got connected to Exchange server.

About GUID, after client connected to Exchange server, the GUID which associated with the specified account will be distributed by the server automatically.

Thanks again for your sharing.

;***************************************************************
; Section 4 - Default values for each service.
;***************************************************************
[ServiceEGS]

MailboxName=%UserName%

HomeServer=contoso.com

[Service1]

OverwriteExistingService=No

UniqueService=Yes

MailboxName=%UserName%

HomeServer=contoso.com

AccountName=Microsoft Exchange Server

• Edited by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator 18 hours 49 minutes ago

Hi Andrew:

Really appreciate for your sharing of information, it will benefit for others in the forum.

Sorry for my belated response. I have been setting up a test environment from my side. Yesterday I tested the .PRF file. I changed some settings in section 1 and 4 as below. It got connected to Exchange server.

About GUID, after client connected to Exchange server, the GUID which associated with the specified account will be distributed by the server automatically.

Thanks again for your sharing.

;**************************************************************
; Section 1 - Profile Defaults
; **************************************************************

[General]
Custom=1
ProfileName=outlook
DefaultProfile=Yes
OverwriteProfile=Append
ModifyDefaultProfileIfPresent=true
DefaultStore=Service1

;***************************************************************
; Section 4 - Default values for each service.
;***************************************************************
[ServiceEGS]

MailboxName=%UserName%

HomeServer=contoso.com

[Service1]

OverwriteExistingService=No

UniqueService=Yes

MailboxName=%UserName%

HomeServer=contoso.com

AccountName=Microsoft Exchange Server

• Edited by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator Wednesday, April 15, 2015 11:57 AM
• Proposed as answer by Chloe WangMicrosoft employee, Moderator Tuesday, April 21, 2015 6:46 AM
• Unproposed as answer by AndyH16 23 hours 31 minutes ago

Hi, apologies for the late reply. I can't see much of a difference between the PRF I sent you and what you mention to change above, apart from setting the homeserver as the domain name rather than the name of an exchange server. I tried this and unfortunately it didn't work.

I'll probably just stick with removing the PRF file from client PCs and future deployments as autodiscover is working correctly and discovering the details.

Thanks for your help anyway, much appreciated.