Microsoft’s decision to stop supporting Microsoft 365 services on Office 2016/2019 after October 2023 (which is this year) can be viewed as a cynical attempt to encourage users to upgrade to newer versions of Office. This can be seen as a ploy to generate more revenue for the company, rather than a genuine concern for its users.

Furthermore, the frequent updates and changes to Microsoft’s productivity tools can be overwhelming for some users. The constant need to adapt to new features and interfaces can lead to frustration and reduced productivity. Users may feel like they are always playing catch-up and never have the opportunity to fully master their tools before they are outdated.

Moreover, the cost of upgrading to a newer version of Office can be prohibitive for some individuals and businesses. For smaller organizations, the cost of upgrading may be a significant burden. This can create an uneven playing field, where only those with the financial resources to upgrade can fully take advantage of the latest productivity tools.

In conclusion, while the announcement that Microsoft 365 services are supported on “modern” apps may appear positive at first glance, the fact that Office 2019 is considered “old” is a cause for outrage. The frequent updates and changes to Microsoft’s productivity tools can be overwhelming, and the cost of upgrading can be prohibitive for some users. These factors can create an uneven playing field and may cause frustration for end users and solutions providers who cannot keep up with the pace of technological advancements.

My two cents: Microsoft is greedy and wants to maximize profit while showing the middle finger to customers and solution providers.

Sources:

ChatGPT helped me out, just a little bit https://chat.openai.com/chat

One or a few users are not able to connect to their mailbox using the newest Outlook version there is? Well the issue might be TLS 1.2 not being active on the user’s side.

Just set this registry key and you should be good to go:

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

DWORD SecureProtocols 00000A80

HEX A80 or decimal 2688 enables TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2, while decimal 640 only enables TLS 1.0 and 1.1.

References:

https://www.anoopcnair.com/disable-enable-tls-1-0-1-1-internet-explorer-ie/

In Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online, to connect a soft deleted mailbox, you have need to use the cmdlet New-MailboxRestoreRequest to restore the mailbox to another user.

Get-Mailbox -SoftDeletedMailbox | select guid

Get-Mailbox <NewMailbox> | select guid

New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SourceMailbox <GUID> -TargetMailbox <GUID of new mailbox> -AllowLegacyDNMismatch

To check the status of the restore:

Get-MailboxRestoreRequest | Get-MailboxRestoreStatistics

References:

Reddit

Azure AD App Proxy allows you to publish an internal website to the internet. It is easy to set up and does not require inbound firewall rules. Traditionally, you would publish a website with the help of a reverse proxy, for example with Citrix Netscaler/ADC, KEMP Loadbalancer or F5.

In the Azure AD Portal (aad.portal.azure.com) open Application Proxy and firstly install the software on a server in the corporate network. Domain join is not a requirement, but is needed if you use Kerberos authentication.

You will need to log in with your tenant admin (or a M365 user that has the appropriate role).

After the installation, you should see the server in Azure AD App Proxy:

To then publish your site, select + Configure an app

Provide the internal URL along with the protocol (HTTPS or HTTP). You could select Azure AD in Pre Authentication and work with conditional access policies and require MFA for example. This example is using Passthrough Authentication.

Also some basic settings can be changed. To publish the site, hit + Add

After a few minutes, your site should be available:

You can also configure custom domains by verifying your domain(s) in Microsoft 365 by uploading your public certificate with the private key (pfx) and configuring the appropriate DNS record. For detailed information, check out the Microsoft docs below.

References:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/app-proxy/application-proxy

If you need make a room mailbox public, for example for a public event, these few PowerShell commands will help you:

First, connect to Exchange Online with your tenant admin:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

Make the calendar public and make the calendar entries visible to everyone:

Set-MailboxCalendarFolder publicRoomMailbox:\Calendar -PublishEnabled $true

Set-MailboxCalendarFolder publicRoomMailbox:\Calendar -Detaillevel Full

Show the HTML and iCalendar URL:

Get-MailboxCalendarFolder publicRoomMailbox:\Calendar | fl published*

The URLs can be shared with anyone or the HTML URL could be embedded on a website as part of an iFrame.