Outlook premium gone, but is there another way?

[dillspooch]

Microsoft nixed Outlook Premium just a few weeks before I was about to buy it, so I could use my own personal domain instead of the email host I currently use.

I own the domain and can modify the MX records and any other part of the DNS settings. Can they be updated to point to Outlook.com's servers?

I searched, and found a few references but nothing definitive about what to change. Can it be done, and will it work?

 

[Roy Corneloues]

Same boat. Was about to subscribe when they canned it. I was hoping it was just going to be rolled in to O365.

Which they did, apart from the all important personal domain support!

Curiously, they also tweaked the service forcing you to sign in with an Outlook.com/hotmail email address/alias.

My MSA has been my personal email address since it was created and had my reply to address in Outlook set to the same.

Now it looks like we're being forced to use the outlook address for everything.

 

[Topherious]

I have been using Hotmail / outlook.com as my primary email since 2007. For a custom domain to work with outlook.com for sending / receiving, you will need to create two records in the DNS for your personal domain.

1. MX Record
Sub-domain: @
Record type: MX
Points to: 1440429857.pamx1.hotmail.com
MX Priority: 10 (Can be anything as long as it is the lowest number for MX in the domain)

2. SPF Record
Sub-domain: Value: v=spf1 include:hotmail.com ~all
Record type: TXT
Points to: yourdomainname.com

Earlier this year when Microsoft migrated Outlook.com to the Exchange back-end, I was no longer able to sign in using my custom email address and Outlook 2016 stopped syncing the mailbox. The common resolution that I found was to create an alias for a live.com / outlook.com address but as I didn't want to go down this path, I was lucky to find an alternate solution which needs an additional DNS record in the custom domain for the Exchange Auto Discovery service.

Auto Discover
Sub-domain: autodiscover
Record type: CNAME
Points to: autodiscover.outlook.com

With all the settings above, I have full sign in and send / receive using my custom domain email address with no alias created for the outlook.com / live.com domains. For Outlook 2016 on my desktop, I can also take advantage of the auto discover setup where all I need is to enter my email address and password and Outlook 2016 will successfully discover and configure all the settings as a standard Microsoft Exchange Mailbox.

If you are using the new Outlook.com beta that has removed all the settings for accessing connected accounts and aliases, you will need to switch back to the original service by clicking the button for "Try the beta" at the top right of the outlook.com window, just under your name and then in settings, set your personal custom email address as primary again.

I hope this helps someone get everything working using custom domains with Outlook.com as it has been a pretty solid configuration for me over the last 10 years.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[dillspooch]

Thank you Chris, that's great information. I'll be trying it in a week or three, and will update this thread.

Cheers
Mike

 

[dillspooch]

I started the switchover last night, changed my domains DNS records. My email is being directed to Microsoft's servers now, so I can see it through Outlook.com and with the mail app in Windows 10, but Outlook 2016 isn't working so far. When adding the account it says 'the name cannot be matched to a name in the address list'.

I made sure I'm not using the Outlook.com beta service (it was turned on before), and under my settings my email address is the one and only primary alias. I'm not sure if this is related but when I click on my name in the top right of Outlook.com, it shows an email address of outlook_FBnxnxnxnxnxnxnxn.com. Could that b ethe problem? I can't find a way to change that.