How to stop outlook from opening a browser every time I create a meeting?

Chris,

What Channel and Version is Office (File, Office Account, under About Outlook)? I am checking if a bug that was just submitted could be what you are seeing. The original issue with OWA disabled is fixed and we are not seeing new reports with it. Since you have OWA enabled then it is likely a new bug.

Just started happening this morning with an end user.

• Microsoft Office fully updated
• OWA is ENABLED
• Windows Updates up to date
• I went in to all of her email accounts using web version and verified Language/ Time Zone is set.
• Ran Quick and Online Office Repair
• Disabled all addons

* She has four accounts through Office365, when she clicks between them is when is 7/10 times pops up to her Firefox with the OPX URL.

* All four email accounts are through Microsoft 365 Business Standard.

Hi All,

For the secondary issue where the browser window was still occurring if users have never signed into OWA this issue is supposed to now be fixed. If anyone can test it or has seen this issue resolved, please let me know. I will be updating the Known Issue article soon with this update but would like to have customer confirmation prior to that update, Outlook unexpectedly opens a browser window if OWA is disabled - Microsoft Support.

For those that missed this (it's somewhere in the middle), this is listed officially as a bug and the page has been updated on 4/26/2023 stating the (not really very viable workaround...) and that they are looking into it. Someone posted the workaround earlier and others, including myself, have confirmed it does work though (just not that reasonable for more than a few users). There has been no updates since 4/26

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/outlook-unexpectedly-opens-a-browser-window-if-owa-is-disabled-4c915e88-0654-4f77-8daa-a624600dc718

Update 4/26/23*: After the fix was released, some users reported the issue still occurred. After investigating further, it was determined the issue persists for users that have never signed into OWA. A bug has been logged to investigate if this scenario can be fixed. In the meantime, if your users have not signed into OWA, then to mitigate do the following workaround:*

1. Enable OWA for the user.
2. Have the user open OWA and set the Language/Time zone and proceed to open the OWA email page.
3. Disable OWA for the user.
4. Test and confirm this mitigated the issue.

We will update this topic as we get more updates on this secondary issue.

I have users still having same issue, on version 16.0.16327.20200.

Editing host file not working anymore either.