This account is not supported in Outlook for Windows due to the license provided by your work or school

Bottom line is this: Microsoft has two distinct eco-systems - consumer and business. Problem is that they use the SAME names for products in both and this causes ENDLESS amounts of confusion. Examples: Outlook and Outlook "new", Teams and Teams for Business, office.com and outlook.com (not the same but confusing for users), Skype and Skype for Business, etc, etc, etc

I will NEVER understand the thought process behind this.

Best I can tell is that Outlook "new" is just a crippled version of both Outlook and WIndows Mail that will not allow any corporate exchange O365 or M365 licensed email to be configured.

Worse still; users are forced to switch from Windows Mail (which worked perfectly fine with all email types) because the Windows Mail icon is replaced with Outlook "new". Then they start the wizard/upgrade process and find out their work email won't work anymore. This is just BAD design and poor planning on Microsoft's part.

I've received MANY calls from users who are frustrated by this.

Get it together Microsoft!

Thank you, Microsoft, for this utterly nonsensical change in your licensing application. This was the final push I needed to stop using Hosted Exchange for my domain and my wifes domain.

Been using Hosted Exchange for years. Been really happy with it. But the cost keeps increasing, by removing the Hosted Exchange licensing forced us to adopt Microsoft 365 Business Basic, costing about twice the amount for adding features we never use. The licensing cost keeps increasing almost yearly for no apparent reason.

I've been sticking with it as I prefer Exchange Active Sync over IMAP.IDLE as it handles notifications better. When reading an e-mail on one device, the notification isn't stuck on other devices.

But this finally pushed me to reconsider. We are forced to pay for Microsoft 365 Business Basic twice, just because me and my wife have two different domains. The cost is immense, considering how we use the service. And you keep on bundling additional stuff to increase the price, even though these features has no value to us.

Locking us out of "New Outlook" even though we already pay for access to desktop applications via Microsoft 365 Family, and we both also have desktop applications licensed through our employer, is beyond stupid. This is nickle and diming at it's finest. Requiring you to have a license allowing for desktop application per mailbox instead of the application level is infuriating, to say the least.

Just moved us both from Hosted Exchange / Microsoft 365 over to iCloud+ as we already have this option as part of our Apple One Family subscription. The move was easy, the functionality is pretty much the same, and notifications are working great as Apple doesn't rely on IMAP.IDLE for notifications. This saves us a lot of money per year.

And to just make it all even more silly, guess what? We can utilise "New Outlook" without any issues as it supports adding e-mails from iCloud. So by removing our Microsoft 365 Business Basic subscriptions and moving our e-mail from Hosted Exchange / Microsoft 365 over to iCloud+, we save money, and we are allowed to use "New Outlook".

I just ran into the same issue myself. This change doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

I have 2x Microsoft 365 Business Basic for my two domains. One is handling my own e-mail. and the second is handling my wifes e-mail.

The only reason we pay for Microsoft 365 Business Basic is to be able to have Hosted-Exchange to use our own domains for our e-mails. We have been using Microsoft 365 Business Basic / Hosted-Exchange for years because we find the administration and the use of Exchange Active Sync to be superior compared to using Google, Apple and others using IMAP IDLE is not as efficient with notification handling as Exchange Active Sync.

We haven't had any need to pay for any higher level of Microsoft 365 Business because we already have Microsoft 365 Family which provides access to desktop applications such as Microsoft Outlook. We both also have Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5 via our employer which also allows us to use them on private devices to gain access to desktop applications.

This change is just absurd and completely tonedef. Why on earth should we be required to upgrade our Microsoft 365 Business Basic plans when we already have access to desktop applications via other subscriptions already? To make it even stupider, the "legacy" Microsoft Outlook still functions as normal, allowing for adding Microsoft 365 Business Basic e-mail accounts. It's only the "New Outlook" for Windows that won't allow it. Even "New Outlook" for macOS doesn't block this.

Surely this has to be an oversight and mistake with the latest update to "New Outlook" for Windows?

I've been using the new outlook for windows for months now as my work license does not provide me with access to outlook for desktop. I was fine for ages until the latest update and now I can't add that account. However, it appears to accept the other work account with has the exactly the same license... seriously Microsoft? What's going on? I pay for Office365 premium so one would expect I could add it as I can add it on my phone!

Hello dean03032,

Welcome to Microsoft Community, we are glad to assist you here.

According to the error "This account is not supported in Outlook for Windows due to the license provided by your work or school", it seems this account does not have proper license or your organization IT admins has restricted the use of multiple account in Outlook for Windows due to licensing restrictions. Thus, do you have any chance to check the license assignment on this account? You can refer to What Microsoft 365 business product or license do I have? - Microsoft Support | What Microsoft 365 subscription do I have? - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Typically, when you switch from Windows mail app to the New Outlook for Windows, the new Outlook for Windows will launch into the first account on your list in Windows Mail, you can refer to Getting started with the new Outlook for Windows - Microsoft Support. However, if you don't have a Microsoft 365 office apps license or if your IT admin set restriction not to add multiple accounts in Outlook, as a work around you can install Outlook PWA(Progressive Web App), after you install the web version of Outlook as a progressive web app, you can do things like pin and launch the web version of Outlook from your computer's home screen or taskbar, and access your account while you're offline. Therefore, you can install two PWAs for two accounts and pin them to your taskbar. This way, you can access both of your accounts at the same time without having to log in and out. You can refer to Use the web version of Outlook like a desktop app - Microsoft Support

Hope this is helpful, and please feel free to get back to us if you have further concerns,

Regards,

Microsoft Community