In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to hide Try the new Outlook toggle in the Outlook Desktop app using Intune and Group Policy (GPO). Organizations can make use of these methods to disable the try new Outlook toggle for multiple users.
Many customers were let down when they upgraded to the new Outlook classic version after using the ‘Try the new Outlook‘ toggle, as it basically lacked numerous features that were previously available in the older version.
It is important to mention here that the Try the new Outlook toggle is now available in Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel (MEC) and Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview). For all properly licensed users with a Microsoft Entra account and an Exchange Online account, the new Outlook for Windows is by default enabled.
The below image shows the location where the new Outlook toggle appears for users. This option is located in the top-right corner in the Outlook classic desktop app.
Disable “Try the new Outlook” toggle in Outlook using the registry
Microsoft released a set of instructions providing the Outlook Desktop registry key to enable or hide the New Outlook toggle. However, introducing changes to the registry is feasible when you have a handful of computers in the question.
The “HideNewOutlookToggle” registry key controls the visibility of the new Outlook toggle in classic Outlook. When the value is set to “1,” the toggle is hidden. To make the toggle visible again, change the value to “0” and restart classic Outlook.
To enable the New Outlook toggle in Outlook Desktop, copy and paste the below code into Notepad and save this file as enablenewoutlooktoggle.reg. Run the .reg file and select Yes in the confirmation dialog that appears.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General]
"HideNewOutlookToggle"=dword:00000000To disable the New Outlook toggle in Outlook Desktop, copy and paste the below code into Notepad and save this file as disablenewoutlooktoggle.reg. Run the .reg file and select Yes in the confirmation dialog that appears.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General]
"HideNewOutlookToggle"=dword:00000001Hide Try the New Outlook Toggle using Intune
Let’s create a new policy in Microsoft Intune to hide the try new Outlook toggle for users. Sign in to the Intune admin center and go to Devices > Windows. Under Manage devices, select Configuration and click Create > New Policy.
On the Create a profile window, configure the following settings and select Create.
- Platform: Windows 10 and later
- Profile Type: Settings Catalog
Click Next.
Specify the profile name and add a brief description about this policy. Click Next.
In the Configuration Settings section, under Settings Catalog, click Add Settings. In the Settings picker window, type “Outlook” in the search box and click Search. From the search results, select the category Microsoft Outlook 2016\Outlook Options\Other.
In the bottom pane, select the following setting: “Hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle in Outlook (User)“. Close the Settings Picker.
Hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle in Outlook (User): This policy setting controls whether the “Try the new Outlook” toggle is displayed in Outlook. If you enable this policy setting, the toggle for “Try the new Outlook” will be hidden, and users will not have the ability to switch between the existing and new Outlook experiences. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the toggle for “Try the new Outlook” will be displayed.
Since we want to hide the new Outlook toggle switch for users, enable the policy setting “Hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle in Outlook (User)” and click Next.
In the scope tags section, you specify scope tags. Specifying scope tags is optional, and you may skip this step. Click Next.
In the Assignments window, select the user groups to which you want to assign this policy. We recommend deploying the profile to a few test user groups first and then expanding it to more users if the testing is successful. Select Next.
On the Review + Create page, review all the settings that you have configured for hiding the try new Outlook toggle via Intune and select Create.
After you create a configuration policy in Intune, a notification appears: “Policy created successfully.” This confirms that the policy has been created and is being applied to the groups we chose. The profile we created can be found in the configuration profiles section of the admin center.
To monitor the above policy in Intune, check the device and user check-in status for the policy. Here you can see the total number of devices and users that succeeded in receiving the policy. In some cases, the policy may fail to apply to certain devices. To resolve the issues, you will need to troubleshoot the issue by reviewing Intune logs on computers.
At the user’s end, when the Outlook desktop app is launched, the option to try the new Outlook option is hidden. There is no such option presented to the Outlook user. That confirms that the Intune policy can effectively be used to permanently hide the try new Outlook toggle for users.
Hide Try the New Outlook Toggle using GPO
For Windows devices that are joined to Active Directory, the Group Policy is the right solution to disable the try the new Outlook toggle. This GPO can be applied to the OU or users belonging to a specific department.
In some environments, you may notice the latest Outlook GPO settings may not be available. Hence, you must download and import the latest ADMX templates for Office. If you don’t know where to start, here is a guide that shows how to import ADMX templates in Active Directory.
Launch the Server Manager from the Start menu and click Tools > Group Policy Management console. In the Group Policy Management console, expand the domain, right-click Group Policy Objects or an OU, and select New.
Enter the name for the new GPO as “Hide Try the New Outlook Toggle” and click OK. The new GPO is created and is visible under the list of Group Policy Objects in the console.
Edit this newly created GPO. In the Group Policy Management Editor, navigate to the following path.
User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Outlook 2016 > Outlook Options > Other.
In the right-hand side, double-click on the policy setting Hide the “Try the New Outlook” toggle in Outlook.
Enable this policy setting to hide the Try the new Outlook toggle for users. This will ensure the Outlook users will not have the ability to switch between the old and new Outlook. Click Apply and OK.
After the above group policy object is configured, you need to link the GPO to a user OU if you haven’t already. The best approach is to choose a test OU, connect your GPO, and test the policy settings.
It’s time to update the group policy on the client computers and check to see if access to the taskview button has been disabled. You can use multiple ways to perform the group policy update on remote computers. On a test client machine, you can manually perform the group policy update by running the gpupdate /force command.
To verify the changes applied by the above GPO, launch the Outlook desktop app, and you’ll notice that the group policy has successfully hidden the try the new Outlook toggle for the user.
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