Connect outlook to office365 exchange _without_ signing in office apps

[joeslipemail]

For various reasons (multiple accounts, shared computers, home computers, visiting contractors) we would like to connect outlook 2016 to office365 exchange server but NOT sign into all the office apps. We often use office perpetual licenses (not subscriptions). We have easily accomplished the exchange connection without app (word/excel/etc) sign-in in the past by simply modifying the registry to set enableadal = 0. And this still works in office 2013. But just recently office 2016 completely stopped respecting the enableadal=0. Even with the key set, it still does a modern authentication login and signs in all the apps on the pc to the office365 account. This seems like a bug in the last few versions of office 2016 and 2019..

>>There must be a way to use exchange and NOT sign in to all office apps?<<

here is an example of another user online that had the same request:
"My employer uses office 365 and has assigned office 365 mailboxes to all employees. At home, I've got a personal copy of Office 2016. I've got to have access at home to my work email and calendar, so I've added the Office 365 mailbox to Outlook. Much to my dismay, after doing so, I discovered that I was signed in to all of the office applications with this account. E.g. I'm signed in to Word, Excel, etc. I find it to be very intrusive that I've been signed into the entire Office suite using my work account. If I click the sign-out link in any of the other Office applications, Office reverts to the desirable signed-out state - that is, until I re-launch Outlook, whereupon I am prompted to sign in for my email once again, and the entire Office suite is once again connected to the Office 365 account."

 

[Diane Poremsky]

>>
until I re-launch Outlook, whereupon I am prompted to sign in for my email once again, and the entire Office suite is once again connected to the Office 365 account."
>>
When you add the account to outlook and asked to stay signed in, click the link to sign into the app only. I also untick the box to allow the org to manage office.

 

[joeslipemail]

Diane,
Thank you so much for getting back to me. Your posts/articles and slipstick in general has been a beacon of outlook truth for years for us IT folk!

The suggestion you provided is only somewhat helpful, because, even if you click that, it still signs word and excel into the office account.

 

[joeslipemail]

I haven't looked into it deeply, but I wonder if with the newer office update disabling adal is not enough, maybewe also need to disable WAM. Would be awesome if we could just make a true old fashion exchange connection and not have word, excel, outlook all signed in as the user. I am still using office 2013 and not updating for this reason now. It allows me to connect to the dozens of accounts I connect to for troubleshooting, work, etc in providing support, without intrusivily login my Word application into the same test account. Various other reasons we like to have this function.. eg: shared computers.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Yeah. its a pita - I have 6 accounts in my profile that have office subscriptions and for the longest time, it kept dropping to the consumer subscription even though the business accounts have E3 and E5 subscriptions. It used the PowerShell to delete the office keys and signed in with an E5 and its staying on that, finally. ETA: but all 6 are listed in Excel and Word.

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