Stop automatically installing the new Outlook

excellent reason to jettison Microsoft altogether. NEW OUTLOOK is trash, should be classified as SPAM.

UPDATE! Well, this worked for just over a week, but Microsoft figured a away around it and now Outlook is back to automatically reinstalling itself. Now you can only do these instructions each time you want to try Windows Mail, and redo do them every time after.

The fix that MalacTheLittle presented works on Windows 10, and has worked for me for several days now, if you follow the instructions exactly. I will repost those instructions together here so you can try it seamlessly:

1. Right click on Start Menu and choose Apps and Features
2. Uninstall Outlook (new)
3. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps
4. Create new folder named Microsoft.OutlookForWindows_1.2024.925.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
5. Right click on newly created folder and choose Properties
6. Select Security tab, then Advanced
7. Click on Disable inheritance and choose Remove all inherited permissions from this object
8. Click Apply and Yes

And that should be it... no more Outlook (new) on your PC!

If you have problems with folder permissions, do this first:

1. Right click on WindowsApps folder and choose Properties
2. Select Security tab, then Advanced

3. In header section underOwner click on Change

4. Enter your user name and click Check Names (it will find users object name)

5. Click OK then Apply

Bad news: Windows is going to stop us from using Windows Mail and Calendar entirely come December 31 (they also updated the banner prompt in line with this which is how I found out) –

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/windows-mail-calendar-and-people-are-becoming-new-outlook-773ecb94-5b16-4155-96e1-bc9afdc08e31

"Support for Windows Mail, Calendar, and People will end on December 31, 2024. We're currently in the process of moving existing users to the new Outlook for Windows. After December 31, 2024, users will no longer be able to send and receive email using Windows Mail and Calendar. Any local emails, calendar events, and contacts stored in Mail, Calendar, and People will remain exportable following the steps in Export emails and contacts from Windows Mail or People and import to new Outlook."

Unbelievable what they're doing. Killing off a perfectly good product for something objectively worse.

"If you're not interested in trying the new Outlook for Windows, you can stop using Windows Mail and Calendar and instead manage your email and calendar through your service’s webmail application, or a different email client. Support for Windows Mail, Calendar, and People is ending in 2024 so if you don’t want to use the new Outlook for Windows after trying it, you'll need to move to a different application by the end of 2024. More information on specific end of support dates will be made available in accordance with the Modern Policy for product lifecycles."

"If you would like to go back to Windows Mail and Calendar, you can do so by selecting the toggle in the new Outlook for Windows. You’ll be asked to provide feedback on why you're going back – we encourage you to let us know what we can improve about the new Outlook for Windows so that our product team has the chance to address feedback before support for Windows Mail and Calendar ends in 2024."

What feedback could we possibly give to make New Outlook better? I highly doubt anyone at Microsoft would/could do anything in regard to something like "go back to Mail and Calendar" considering the way in that they're just unreasonably killing it off now.

Unbelievable that they'll suggest to "use a different email client" before letting us keep what's been working for us for years.

"A simplified design" Nothing will be simpler than Mail's UI. It's just perfect for my screen size, my sight, my brain is just used to this and they want me to replace it with that abomination that is Outlook

You'd think a company would ask their clients what they want, what they use, what they don't before discontinuing an app or replacing it with something else. They want feedback? The only feedback is that Mail works perfectly, it didn't need any updates, replacements, refurbishes or anything.

with my hack, I occasionally had windows update re-install outlook...but I think I got it working.

In my original post I removed all permissions of the "fake" outlook dir. But instead of that try changing all permissions from an "allow" entry to a "deny" entry. So...Keep all permission entries just change the type. This involves:

1. Uninstall Outlook
2. in security properties advanced tab of C:\Program Files\WindowsApps , take ownership
3. in the WindowsApp dir, create dir Microsoft.OutlookForWindows_1.2024.925.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
4. in security properties advanced tab of the fake outlook dir, remove inheritance
5. in security properties advanced tab of the fake outlook dir, edit each permission entry. change "type" from allow to deny

Some time after that change, I noticed windows update downloaded outlook, but didn't/couldn't install it.

whats the app on github?

search exactly this on github -> repo:matej137/OutlookRemover

BTW if anyone wants to see when Windows installs something use Event Viewer (windows taskbar search "Event Viewer" or run eventvwr.msc)

logs show up in Windows Logs->System. find "Outlook" in the System table or look for table entries like:

Information <Time> WindowsUpdateClient 19 Windows Update Agent
"Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: 9NRX63209R7B-Microsoft.OutlookforWindows"