Dear Kingsley Obidinnu ,

After completing the code input, you can right-click on the Migration folder, open Properties, select your account in Security Options to open Advanced Options, and check if it is a write rejection setting. If so, then your operation is successful, and you can open Mail to see the effect.

I hope everything goes smoothly for you.

Best Regards,

Addie.C - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hello Addie.C,

I have tried copying and pasting the code you provided (minus the # lines as suggested) and it indicates errors in the code that need to be corrected/removed and when I remove the items it indicates as errors, I just get more errors.

Then I tried your manual suggestion to go to C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration (of course inserting my actual username and it cannot be found on my computer. I tried to locate it by searching through File Explorer and through the Run prompt, neither could locate it.

So, is there some other way of preventing Outlook/New Outlook from installing itself so that I can just use the Mail App? It is so superior in its simplicity where Outlook and in particular this New Outlook are proof that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Thanks for any additional suggestions/functions that can be performed to permanently block Outlook/New Outlook from auto-installing itself.

Dear Mr Addie,

Thank you for this narrative i would like to know what it shows after inputting the code, just to be sure that the command was successful.

Thank you.

Thank you! this has helped me finally, apparently, it was installing automatically without any permission, I'd still prefer to use the Windows Mail App and Microsoft Legacy Outlook instead of New Outlook as it lack too many features and is simply not useful enough for my needs.

Dear Aetherum,

Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

First of all, please understand that starting from 2024, new Windows 11 devices will come pre installed with new Outlook as the default email application. Reference: Outlook for Windows: The Future of Mail, Calendar, and People on Windows 11 - Microsoft Support

Currently, if you wish to continue using Mail and Calendar without automatically redirecting to New Outlook, additional settings are required. Please refer to the following steps:

Note: The highlighted area is the current user name (# comment bar can be deleted)

1.Replace the YOURUSERNAME with actual username of your PC.

2.Select all the codes below and copy them.

3.Open PowerShell with administrator privilege, you can search PowerShell in search bar, right-click it and choose to run with administrator.

4.Once PowerShell is opened, paste the codes into it, and press enter.

Define the folder path to operate on

$folderPath = "C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration"

Define the path of the file to delete

$fileToDelete = "$folderPath\settings.json"

1. Delete the specified file (if it exists)

if (Test-Path -Path $fileToDelete) {

Remove-Item -Path $fileToDelete -Force

Write-Host "File $fileToDelete has been deleted."

} else {

Write-Host "File $fileToDelete does not exist."

}

Get the username of the current logged-in user

$currentUser = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent().Name

2. Get the Access Control List (ACL) of the folder

$acl = Get-Acl -Path $folderPath

Define a new access rule to deny write access for the current user

$denyWriteRule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule($currentUser, "Write", "Deny")

Add the deny write access rule to the folder's ACL

$acl.AddAccessRule($denyWriteRule)

Apply the modified ACL to the folder

Set-Acl -Path $folderPath -AclObject $acl

Output the result of the operation

Write-Host "Write access denied for $currentUser on $folderPath"

The code performs two actions. You can also perform these actions manually if your code does not perform them correctly.

1. deletes the settings.json file inside C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\Migration

2. Add a deny write rule to the Migration folder security permissions.

Hope this help you, please feel free to let me know how it goes. If there is any deviation in my understanding, please forgive me and provide me with more details. I am more than happy to continue to help you.

Best Regards,

Addie.C - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist