


This makes configuration a breeze, as users need only an email ID, Active Directory user name, and password to start, and quickly became popular with IT administrators.

It automatically discovers which Exchange server holds a user’s mailbox and configures the Outlook client to connect to that server. It was confusing for the new users and got completely out of hand in large and complex environments with many Exchange servers.Īutodiscover was introduced in Outlook 2007 to simplify this configuration process. Still, administrators had to do it repeatedly, thereby making configuration cumbersome and, in some ways, an annoying task. In fact, a lot of these configurations made no sense. Also, more configurations were needed to use the latest features available in Outlook 2003. This meant that administrators had to know the name of the Exchange server to configure Outlook.

Before Outlook 2007, administrators had to configure the Exchange clients manually. To understand why this feature is so essential, let’s step back a bit. The advantage of this service is that it establishes the initial connections to Exchange user mailboxes, so users can access many features such as the offline address book. Shutterstock What is autodiscover?Īutodiscover is a service or feature that allows Outlook administrators to configure the user profile settings for Outlook 2007 and later. Let’s get to a detailed explanation of what it is and how it works. Well, that’s Outlook’s autodiscover in a nutshell. Imagine how convenient it would be if users can automatically connect to their email servers without having to configure the settings manually.
