Outlook New Experience update - network save location bug

Hi Gabe,

we thought that 2305 had fixed that bug last week, this week after the latest server updates it seems to be back.

I got it twice today. We also had the problem in Excel and had, until last week when it was closed, a separate question on that here.

I can confirm that other users of Excel have been having similar issues too so I thought we may be looking at a bug that affected Office all versions so did some searching and found this. Saving Office documents to a network server is slow when using EFS

It is rather out of date despite being updated May last year. The link to Enabling Delegated Authentication goes to a page about Server 2K3 and the registry locations are for Windows 8 and before.

The bottom line is it points to a problem with a server that is enabled for Encrypting File System but not configured to use it.

We tick that box but not the rest of the article.

Symptoms

Assume that you use the Encrypting File System (EFS) to help secure the Temporary Internet Files folder. You save Microsoft Office documents to a remote server than can support encryption, but the server is not configured to do remote encryption. In this situation, it takes longer than expected to save the documents.

By default, the "Content.MSO" and "Content.Word" subfolders are used by Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. They are hidden, system-protected subfolders of the Temporary Internet Files folder, as seen in the following example path:

C:\User<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.MSO

In Windows 8, the Temporary Internet Files folder is now known as the "INetCache" folder. Therefore, the path to the "Content.MSO" subfolder would be as follows:

C:\Users<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.MSO

As far as I can tell there are no files or directories showing the Encrypted attribute, if it is still valid instructions I am told that adding the Attributes Column to the Details View in Explorer should show an E against any encrypted folder. I have also checked the properties of the folders and under Advanced there is no tick in the box for Encrypt this folder. At first I thought this ruled it out as a potential fix.

However, we do use Bitlocker so by default the entire disk is encrypted. I suspect that EFS is not the only form of Encryption and therefore BitLocker may count too.

Based on that I have chosen to follow option 2 in the article referenced and set the following in registry on our file server

Disable EFS encryption support on the server by changing the following registry entry:

• PATH: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystemValue
• DWORD: NtfsDisableEncryption
• VALUE: 1

I will update you after I have observed it for a few days more and canvassed the rest of the staff.

I would however be very interested in any comments you have about checking for EFS on a folder or file and Bitlocker being treated as an EFS file system by a server when dealing with a network share. It seems to me this could be the underlying cause of both Outlook and Excel delays when they try to open the save dialog if the default save location is to a mapped drive or UNC fileshare.

We can confirm, we updated to Version 2305 -16501.20196 and expirience the same issue again. It was solved with the update a few weeks ago but has returned again to probably all users in our organization.

We can confirm, we updated to Version 2305 -16501.20196 and expirience the same issue again. It was solved with the update a few weeks ago but has returned again to probably all users in our organization.

I am on 2305 - 16501.20228 Click-to-Run

I got the issue again yesterday when saving an embedded image from the body of an email in Outlook Desktop.

The Save as Image option will always create the issue.

I don't get the issue when saving attachments but that is what used to do it.

There is a difference between the behaviour of Save As / Save All for attachments and Save Image As.

Saving an attachment defaults correctly to the Save location specified in my Outlook settings (My User Profile is a mapped drive containing My Documents)

Save as Image tries to open the location as a UNC path to the file server to the last used location in the same location that my profile home drive is mapped to.

This is clearly a coding difference and indicates this is a problem with the way 365 opens UNC paths.

I have investigated a report that this is the way that 365 calls to a network location when the network location is not using Encrypted File System (EFS) but the source file is.

Saving documents to network server is slow - Office | Microsoft Learn

Although our source folders are not using EFS our drives are using Bitlocker so the whole disk is encrypted.

I have already applied the workaround of disabling EFS in the registry of the server because it was not applied to any volumes.

It does not stop the Save as Image bug but it did seem to help with a very similar bug we were seeing with Excel both 2013 and 365. The article referenced above does say the bug has been there since Office 2010 and they haven't fixed it.

Based on that I am not betting on MS fixing this one anytime soon.

We have been having this issue on and off for about 2 years in our organization. Microsoft fixes it, breaks it, fixes it, breaks it. We are now stuck on v 2302 (Build 16130.20500) as 2305 and 2306 are both experiencing this issue. We're having to manage versions in group policy and would love to be patched and running the new version but when you have users constantly complaining about this, it makes daily work on client side rough and administration on sysadmin side rough.

Hi all,

The Outlook Support Escalation Team is working with our peers in Office and Windows to get a bug escalated for this issue. To formally track it I posted a Known Issue article, Outlook Desktop is slow to save attachments to a network path - Microsoft Support.