What's going on with office.com / web apps?
I'm aware that Microsoft had already chosen to upend usability once by changing office.com into 😡m365.cloud.microsoft😡 and make accessing web apps more difficult. This week I found they're hidding applications even further by burying them at the bottom of the page behind another menu - even when "pinned". Below are two screenshots of the 😡m365.cloud.microsoft😡 portal from different accounts that were created on the same day and accessed from the same computer and web browser via admin priveledges. I have observed this discrepency more than once with various accounts. Can someone explain the rational for Microsoft continuing to further bury office applications from users? Am I unaware of a new portal to access the Office applications our users rely upon every day?
Third-party access via Organisational Link
Hi, Previously when logging into my personal account on a Web Browser, it flashed up with what is the typically an organisational message about an IT administrator. After being ping-ponged back and forth from the Microsoft Support teams, it's been suggested there is an organisational link with my personal email account, which absolutely should NOT be the case. My concern is if someone has linked my email with an organisational account, then they are privy to a lot sensitive information from personal finances to healthcare (this has also correlated with some odd behaviour on certain devices). The agents that I have spoke to have not yet provided me with a viable solution to removing any links to an organisational account, nor getting a list of any organisations or entities that have been linked to my personal account. Does anyone have any ideas as to a way around this? Many thanks.
How to Backup Emails in Outlook?
If you want to backup emails in Outlook, the easiest and most reliable way is by using the Mails.Daddy Email Backup Tool. I’ve used it personally to export my Outlook.com emails to formats like PST, EML, and MBOX with zero data loss. It connects via IMAP and lets you back up selective folders or the entire mailbox. Whether you're planning to backup Outlook emails to a hard drive or migrate them to another email client, this tool is fast, secure, and beginner-friendly. For anyone asking how to backup emails in Outlook, I strongly recommend trying this — it’s a smooth experience and saves a lot of time.New Landing Pages for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (rant)
So I found out this week that MS is piloting new landing pages for the core Office apps (again). Instead of loading in the M365 Home page, they now load in an entirely new page. Why was this necessary? We've already been here before and MS spent years moving everything to the Home app. The dust has finally settled and things are working great. Why move things out again?Microsoft’s Push to Save Office Files in the Cloud
A new policy setting is available to force Microsoft 365 enterprise (Office subscription) applications to save to cloud locations and ignore the local disk. The idea is to increase cloud usage and improve compliance by storing all Office files in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. Like a network PC, creating a dependency on a network connection only makes sense when a network connection is dependable, which might not always be the case. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/09/save-to-cloud-locations/Mobile Device Management Options Disappear from OWA and the New Outlook
Microsoft plans to remove the ability of users to perform mobile device management (for their devices) from the OWA and new Outlook for Windows clients. It’s unclear how much se these options receive, but following the update, users will only be able to disable or wipe a device remotely using features provided by O/S vendors. Administrators can still act to block or wipe lost or stolen devices. https://office365itpros.com/2025/08/15/mobile-device-management-owa/
Microsoft 365 Cloud vs Desktop Applications
I am having issues with the Microsoft 365 Professional version which supposedly should display the documents as a replica on the Cloud when edited using the Desktop version of the same application. Shown below is what a Microsoft Word document looks like side-by-side Cloud vs Desktop: It would seem that spacing and page breaks would hold properly in the Cloud version (shown on the left), but do not. My understanding is that Microsoft Office products have always had an XML base, so technically, what is produced using a Desktop version of an application should display as a replica when opened in a Cloud version of an application. However, what I am seeing is that I lose page numbering and properly spacing in my Cloud version of the same exact document which is pulled from the same exact file location. I am constantly doing double the work to create a perfect document. Are there any suggestions from Microsoft 365 support that might help remedy these formatting issues?MS 365 Group Mailbox - New Outlook Search Not Working
We have just received a troubled call stating that the Search Feature inside of the MS 365 Group Mailboxes is not working. I reviewed this, and it is the same for all MS 365 Group Mailboxes, while the search feature dose work with all personal mailboxes. We are on the New Outlook platform and this issue is occurring for both Installed and web version of Outlook. Has anyone run across this or know of a fix? Thank YouMicrosoft 365 Subscriptions
In fourth quarter of 2024, I decided to upgrade my machine and tried out a web only version (freeware) of Microsoft 365. After some time, I found out that I was not getting the qualities I needed for documentation to be presentable as Microsoft Word and Excel were not usable for print formats. I decided to buy a Microsoft 365 Business subscription (bought through my domain provider) which allowed me to use my email address attached to me and my website domain. This allowed me to also download desktop copies of Word and Excel. However, I ran into problems with old accounts colliding with my new ones..., for example, Skype for Business, Microsoft Store, and Microsoft Live would constantly appear in my installation admins. If I attempted to install them, the installation would fail and get stuck i.e, I could not remove them. Microsoft message pop-ups would state, "You cannot install this on a 'work' account." I thought to myself, "Okay, I installed my Windows OS as a "Work Account on my new machine." This made sense, because I could go to my browser on my new machine and I could go to my old laptop that had absolutely no Microsoft 365 on it and access my Office from my browser profile. My old laptop is the only machine that accepts the Windows Live email address i.e., it acts as a Windows Live access service via the 'free' outlook account to which it is attached. However, now that all these items are separated by Work or Home classification, I keep getting messages that state, "We cannot renew your Microsoft 365 account." But my Work account should not be attached to Microsoft Live accounts...should it? After all, it uses Entra ID for access and the subscription is bought through my domain vendor. Why is Microsoft Support sending me these emails? My original setup accessed Microsoft Live accounts via the web through my old laptop using my free Outlook email and looked something like the graphic below:
