Outlook Profile forced to connect to Windows AD Local Exchange. Need to connect to new M365 tenant

[Kevin Remde]

I have a customer who is still in a Windows AD domain.  They're splitting from the parent company, but for now the PCs still have to be in the domain.  I've migrated email to Microsoft 365 from their in-house Exchange. 

I'm trying to create new Outlook profiles to connect to the cloud, but the domain is forcing the connection to their old server.  How can I force or override this and connect Outlook to the cloud directory and Microsoft 365 Exchange service?  

Thanks,

Kevin

[#2 · Accepted solution]

First, you need to identify which method is Outlook hitting. On a domain-joined machine, this is likely the SRV, but just in case go over this article and check by running the Test Email Autoconfiguration wizard: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/outlook-2016-implementation-of-autodiscover-0d7b2709-958a-...
Once you identify the method, you can use the client-side reg keys to disable it and "instruct" Outlook to proceed to the O365 endpoint.