Office 365 cloud features do not work when using a privacy VPN

Anonymous
2016-07-27T20:31:21+00:00

When I have a privacy VPN active (such as Private Internet Access - PIA) I can't access the cloud features on Office 365 (such as online templates, OneNote sync to the cloud, Excel or Word saving to OneDrive directly, etc). I have tried 3 different VPN solutions: PIA, NordVPN and VPNArea and they all exhibit the same issue. Is there a way to solve this or to tell Office to bypass the VPN?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Other

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

136 answers

Sort by: Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-01-25T20:32:00+00:00

    I reiterate that my own experience has been as follows running Office 365 under Windows 7:

    • NordVPN would not allow Outlook under Office 365 to work at all, period, even after trying all the fixes with default gateway etc, and senior tech support at NordVPN finally cited threads to me on forums showing that for many users it's simply not fixable (I didn't try OneDrive or OneNote)
    • HotSpot Shield has worked with Outlook and all of Office 365 flawlessly, and overall it's a more efficient VPN than anything else I've tried
    • CyberGhost has also worked perfectly fine with all of Office 365 (settings: OpenVPN, TCP, no random ports, DNS leak protection, disable IPv6)

    I've also tried PIA with only spotty success, and ExpressVPN which seemed okay but failed once so I dropped it (and I didn't like it in general).

    I have no affiliation whatsoever with any of these companies. I'm just a business end-user.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-01-31T15:59:49+00:00

    Sadly even Mac Wheeler's fix (https://www.macwheeler.com/windows-10-office-365-cannot-connect-over-openvpn-fixed/) wouldn't work for me.

    Does anyone have any suggestion as to why this might be - bear in mind I am a complete techno-thickie but I did follow Mac's instructions to the letter

    Thanks

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-01-31T22:00:23+00:00

    Thank you so very much!  This worked like a charm and my 365 is working agan with NordVPN!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-02-15T10:42:44+00:00

    I've been having the same issue with Office 365 products when running NordVPN - Outlook won't connect to Office365 mail boxes, One Note won't synch changes, Excel and Word file changes are not saved to cloud folders, and OneDrive stops synching files.  I've turned off CyberSec in NordVPN and set it to use UDP - and this doesn't solve the problem. consistently.

    One fix which worked for me is to change the DNS settings of my Wifi adaptor to use Google's DNS servers - searching for "Office 365" at the support.nordpvn.com website will provide a step by step instruction guide on how to do this.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  5. Anonymous
    2019-02-24T21:49:00+00:00

    Hi,

    I solved this problem turning on "Public folder sharing"

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments