Speed Up Outlook 2007 by Changing One Default Setting

I have probably 150 users who constantly complain about their Microsoft Outlook 2007 loading to slowly. Now I don't control the Exchange server or the setup of the desktop software settings but I can make changes to them. I found that one simple change to the Outlook 2007 default settings (applied by desktop setup) can make the program open in half the time. It's a very simple fix that is on by default and might be overlooked when configuring the software.

I work on web servers but frequently am asked to assist in the support of the desktop users; they always complain nothing works fast enough. Well Outlook 2007 was one application that I could agree with them on, it took about 2 minutes to open and sometimes even longer. I started to dig into this issue and found that there is a default setting that can cause abnormal load times and is easily turned off, once turned off Outlook 2007 loaded in about 20 seconds instead of 2 to 5 minutes.

So what is this magical setting? Why does it cause the massive slow down to the application? Well the answers to those questions are the setting is that Outlook is set to connect to Exchange using Outlook Anywhere, which is pointless on a corporate LAN/WAN. This causes massive slowdowns because Outlook is not using the local LAN or WAN over TCP/IP and instead trying to get access to the Exchange server over HTTP protocol (over the internet) which can be much slower. If you are within your company's network it doesn't make sense to try to get the Exchange info over the internet (which this setting forces your computer to do just that).

So to fix this problem, speed up your Outlook 2007 and also make it a bit more secure, you simply have to follow these steps to turn off this functionality:

Open Outlook 2007

Click Tools

Click Account Settings

Double click the email account you want to change (most often your name)

Click More Settings Button

Click Connections Tab

Uncheck the box Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP

Click OK

Click Next

Click Finish

Restart Outlook (it should load faster)

This should speed up the load time for Outlook 2007 and hopefully make your customers much happier. This should be disabled for anyone within a LAN/WAN, it doesn't make sense to use the HTTP protocol to get the Exchange connection when you can do it much easier and faster over the TCP/IP protocol. So if your users are complaining about slow load times in Outlook 2007 check this setting first, it's probably your main issue with Outlook 2007 being so slow.