Remove Skype for Business 2019/365 and Lync from Windows

Last updated: February 2019

When we first wrote this post, Microsoft’s Lync was the “Skype equivalent” for corporate users. As part of the release of Microsoft Office 2016, Lync was rebranded as Skype for Business, and positioned  as the Microsoft instant messaging solution for corporate and enterprises.

Instant messaging is great for collaborating with your peers, however it’s not unheard that people call the quits on messaging at work and decide to disable or uninstall the IM software from their computers.

In this post we’ll discuss the process for removing Lync 2013 and Skype for Business software from your Windows 7 or 10 PC.

Uninstall Lync 2013 on Windows

1. Open the Control panel and select Programs.
2. Click on Uninstall a program below programs and features.
3. Select Microsoft Office professional plus 2013 and click Change next to uninstall.

4. After the dialog box open, click Add or Remove programs and select Continue.
5. Search for Microsoft Lync and click on the drop down box next to it.
6. Change Run from my computer to Not Available and click Continue.

7. Wait till the Configuration progress ends.

Disable Skype for Business in Office 365 / 2019

Skype for Business is integrated into Office 365, and doesn’t appear as an independent entry in the Programs and Features list. Therefore, the only feasible way to uninstall it would be to uninstall Office 365 altogether.

That said,  provided you do have the right permissions, you could as well disable Skype in a quite simple manner, so that even if installed, it won’t start automatically when logging on to Windows 7/10 or alternatively it would run only in the background and won’t interfere with your daily work.

Please proceed as following:

1. Open Skype for Business
2. Hit the Options menu at the right hand side of your upper toolbar.
3. Hover to the Personal tab
4. Uncheck the check boxes shown in the screenshot below:

5. Hit OK, you’re all set

Remove Skype for Business 2016

If you are running Office 2016, Skype for Business is installed as a standalone application, so the procedure is the same one as above.

1. In Windows 10, hit the Search Windows button.
2. Type Control Panel and hit Enter.
3. Hit Programs.
4. Hit Programs and Features.
5. Then highlight for the Skype entry in the installed program list.
6. Now hit Uninstall and follow the wizard steps.

How to get rid of the Skype chat history in Outlook.com messenger?

Recently, I had problems with deleting Skype chat message history stored in Outlook messenger. After a long research, looks like there are no options available to delete Skype chat history directly from Outlook messenger.  Instead, we need to clear the whole chat history in Skype itself. After doing so, the  The procedure is described below.

To delete chat history in Skype application:

•  Log into your Skype account (note that you might need to install Skype on your PC if it’s not already installed).
• Click on the Tools from the toolbar and select options.
• Click Privacy settings from the opened dialog box.

• You can find Clear History down the Keep History for and Select Clear History.

• Click Delete in the dialog box and Select Save.
• Now you won’t find chat conversation in Skype application and also in outlook messenger.

Note:

• We can delete specific messages on from the recent chat by right click and select Remove message.

Configuration settings to add Yahoo Mail to Outlook 365 ,2019, 2016

Last updated: September 2019

Tutorial applicability: Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013; Office 365 and Standard; Windows operating systems.

Here’s a question i got the other day from one reader, who was looking for the settings to add Yahoo to Outlook 365 / 2019:

“I am a long time user of Microsoft Outlook for managing my business email. As i do own an account at Yahoo Mail , i thought of asking you guys whether you could provide a guide to help me configure Outlook so i can send and receive my Yahoo email. Can Yahoo even be used on Outlook? If so, how can i connect them? Thanks :-)”

Sure. In this post we’ll explain the required settings that you can use to configure Microsoft Outlook to easily access your Yahoo mailbox. We’ll use version 2016 for simplicity, but the content is relevant also if you decided to upgrade to Office 2019 / 365.

Note that this tutorial is not only relevant for the .com Yahoo Mail but also to Yahoo.co.uk and other regional sites.

Configuring Outlook for Yahoo Mail access

1. Start by opening Outlook , then hit File in the task bar and select Add Account.
2. Click on the Manual setup or additional server type and select Next.
3. In Choose service, select POP or IMAP and click Next.
4. Enter Name and Email address in the given blank space.
5. In the Server information, set Account Settings as IMAP.
6. Next is to input the Yahoo mail server settings. Under  Incoming Mail Server set: imap.mail.yahoo.com.
7. Under  Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) set: Type smtp.mail.yahoo.com .
8. Next, enter your Yahoo Account password in the Logon Information section.
9. Go to the Outgoing Server tab and  check the My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication box and select use same settings as my incoming mail ser
10. Now go ahead, and hit More Settings … select Advanced.
11. Enter 993 in Incoming server (IMAP) and select SSL/TLS in Encrypted connection.
12. Enter 465 in outgoing server (SMTP) and select SSL/TLS in Encrypted connection.
13. ver.
14. Now hit OK and select Next in the Add Account dialog box.
15. At this point Outlook will test out your account to ensure your configuration is valid the the account was added. If for some reason it doesn’t, all you’ll need to do to manually trigger the verification process is hit the Test Account settings button.
16. Congrats! you have added your Yahoo account in Outlook.

Yahoo Mail Outlook settings

The screenshots below summarizes the most up-to-date recommended configuration settings for YMail on Outlook 365/2019/2016:

POP and IMAP:

Outgoing Server:

Advanced settings:

Adding GMail to Outlook 2019/2016

If you need to configure GMail for Outlook 2016/ 2019 we definitely recommend that you’ll look into our tutorial on the suggested Gmail configuration settings for Outlook 2016.

Next steps

• Got a related question? Look into our guide on how to get your questions answered.

How to create custom fillable user forms in Microsoft Office 2016 / 2019 applications?

Content developed on Office 2016; however applicable to Office 2019,2013, 2010; desktop and Office 365 versions; Windows 10, 8 and 7;

Post updated on: September 2019

Here’s a question from Deanne:

I need to create a short survey to send to my office coworkers. I know that i could probably use an online solution such as Google Forms or Microsoft Forms. However in my case, i would like to design the form and then send it as an attachment to my colleagues via Microsoft Outlook. I am not sure whether this should be an Outlook, Excel or Word form, but i do want to use Office to create my fillable form. I don’t find the menu item that allows me to go ahead and  start working on my form layout. Any hints are appreciated. Thanks.

Custom forms allow us to capture user feedback in Microsoft Office applications in a relatively neat way.  In this post, we’ll teach you how you can easily create interactive custom fillable user forms and add them into your Microsoft Outlook emails, Excel workbooks and Word  documents. For each office application we’ll provide some basic examples that highlight the use of this capability. Feel free to leave as a comment in case of questions.

Forms in Outlook 2016 and 2019

Before we add our form to Outlook email messages, we’ll go ahead and enable the so-called Developer tab:

• Open Microsoft Outlook
  
• Now right click the Ribbon and select Customize Ribbon.

• Click on the Developer Check box and select OK.

• You’ll now notice the newly added Developer tab in your Ribbon.

Now we’ll go ahead and design a form by re-using an existing template stored in your the standard forms library. Microsoft Outlook ships a nice collection of forms related to the main Outlook objects that you can select and jump-start your form development process.

• From the Ribbon, select Developer  and hit Choose form.

• Hit OK to open your standard form.
• Make the required changes (using  the Design This Form  command).

• When done, hit Publish.

If you are looking for a more in-depth tutorial, make sure you visit this detailed example of an email and appointment template design for Outlook (applicable to both Windows and macOS)

Excel user forms

In this section we’ll learn how to quickly define a data entry form that can help you populate a table in your spreadsheet. If your job involves significant data entry job, this tutorial could really help you save significant amount of time. Follow through for the entire procedure for creating a simple userform in Excel:

Setup the Excel data entry form

• Open Microsoft Excel
• Right click the Ribbon and select Customize Ribbon.
• In the Choose Commands from drop down box, select Commands not in Ribbon.
• Search for the Form command.
• Now in the right hand side, hit the New Tab button. This creates a new tab in the Ribbon that will allow you to place the Form command under it
• New highlight the new tab you just created and hit Rename. Call the tab Form.
• Now highlight the New Group (Custom) group that was automatically created once you created the new tab.
• Now highlight Form in the left hand side and hit Add.
• This will add the Form command to the new tab as shown below:

• Select OK.

Using your form

• Now in your spreadsheet, define your table header as shown below. In our case, we added the Name, Gender etc’.
• Highlight your table header and, hit the Form tab and hit on Form.
•  Your custom fillable form is automatically created and can be used to populate the table as shown below.
• The form can be now emailed to your Outlook recipients as needed.

Data entry form capabilities

It’s worth noting that the custom form has some interesting built in capabilities for data entry:

• New: add new record to the table
• Delete: remove records from the table
• Navigate the table according to field value using Find Prev and Find Next
• Criteria: Search and Filter the table according to predefined values.

Note: Obviously, you can build much more fancy forms in Excel, equipped with every possible data input control.  Today, we wanted to show you the basics, in case of questions, feel free to leave us a comment.

Word 2016/2019 forms:

• Open Microsoft Word.
• Right click on Ribbon and select Customize Ribbon.
• Hit the Developer check box and select OK.
• Enter your Header text and make it to convert text into Table.
• Use the Content Control tools and prepare the texts accordingly to your Header texts.

• Click on Restrict Editing and select Editing Restrictions.
• Click on the Check box and change Filling in Forms from the drop down box.
• In Start Enforcement, Select Yes, Start Enforcing Protection.

• Enter a Password and Retype Password for the Protection.

Can i use an existing Excel or Word form template?

If you want to jump start your form development process, you can use a canned template delivered by Microsoft Word (or Excel).

Kindly proceed as following:

Windows users:

1. Open Word (or Excel).
2. Hit New.
3. In the template search box and type “form”, then hit the magnifying glass icon. Microsoft ships several useful online form templates including:  travel expense, meeting summary, cash donations, membership, job description,  field trip, food sign up reports and more; which you can use in Excel or Word.
4. Look into the available templates, once found double click your chosen form template.
5. Customize your template according to your needs and save it on your computer or OneDrive.

macOS users:

1. Open Word (or Excel) for mac.
2. Hit File and then New File from template.
3. Search for the available template using the right hand side search box.
4. Double click the template.
5. Customize the layout and Save.

How to update your Outlook password in Office 365, 2016 and 2019?

Last updated: September 2019

Securing your email account is a critical measure needed to safeguard your online privacy. Defining a strong password and storing it in a password keeping tool is a good first step. It is recommended, however, to proactively change your password periodically to ensure your account stays protected.

This post explains how you can easily reset your Outlook password in Microsoft Office 2016 / 365 /2019. For simplicity, this tutorial assumes that you are using Outlook.com as your mail provider (although this process is applicable when using Yahoo, Gmail or the account provided you by your ISP).

We’ll start by showing how you can modify your Outlook.com settings, and then actually update your desktop edition of Outlook 365 (2019/2016).

Set a new Outlook.com password

• Log into your Account, Click on Settings on the top right and select Options.

• On Managing your account, Click  Account details.

• From the opened new tab select Security & Privacy.
• Click Change your password.
• Enter Current password, New password and retype new password respectively on the space provided.
• Click Save to change to your new password.

Note: this process can be executed not only on your PC, but also for your cellular phone (be it Iphone or Android)  as well as tablets (iPads, Android, Fire).

Change you password on Outlook 2016 / 2019 /365:

Our next step will be the configure the desktop edition of Outlook (the one installed on your personal computer) to work with the modified password.

• From your computer, open Microsoft Outlook.
• Hit File and then select Account settings.
• In the Account settings dialog box, select your email Account. This could be GMail, Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail or any other POP/ IMAP account configured on your Outlook.
• Now hit Change.

• Under Change Settings, Enter your new password. As a rule, always use a “strong” password that contains both upper and lower case letters, signs and numbers and it’s longer than 8 characters. It’s important that you’ll keep your password secure using password keeping software.
• Click Next to run the test run, and close it.
• Your password will be changed.

Microsoft Exchange users

Important Note: The procedure we outlined above won’t work when accessing your email through an Exchange Server. In this case, your Windows domain credentials (the ones you use in order to login to your computer) are used to control access to your email. You can set a password to your Offlline folders though.

How to automatically receive email in Outlook 2013?

Here’s a note we received from Xavier:

I am using Outlook 2013 to read my Hotmail. The thing is that by default, Outlook refreshes my inbox every hour or so. Is there a way to make Outlook automatically refresh every 5 minutes or less?

Thanks Xavier for this question. As a matter of fact you can configure Outlook 2013 send / receive mechanism to fire off every few minutes as you might need. Here’s how:

• Open Outlook 2013 and ensure that you are in the Mail tab.
• From the upper menu, select Send/Receive.
• Select Send / Receive groups and hit Define a Send /Receive group.
• Set the required time interval as show below:

• Ensure the interval is not too short or you’ll end up with duplicated messages in your mailbox.
• Hit Close, and you’ll be all set.

Recommended steps

How to make a .pst file in Microsoft Outlook 2013?

Last updated:October 2019

The other day, a friend  using Outlook 2013 as his email client, was inquiring about storing  his personal data  in offline Outlook personal folders. We typically refer to these files as PST files. They are useful for storing all correspondence related to a particular subject in a separate folder offline, so searching and retrieval when offline will be easy.

Here’s how you create Outlook data files (pst) in Microsoft Outlook 2013. Using newer Outlook version? Head over to this guide.

• Launch Microsoft Outlook 2013.
• Under Home tab, select New Items.
• Select More Items in the drop down and choose Outlook Data File.

• Browse the location where you would like to store the pst file.
• Enter a name for the file and click on OK.

TIPS :

• To prevent any loss of your email backup, it is a very good practice to backup your PST files to an external device or network folder once a month or a quarter.
• For increased security you might want to password protect your PST file.
• You are free to use as many PST files as needed. Having multiple PST files will allow you to back and store email related to specific people, projects or time frame. Splitting your PST to manageable sizes also lower the risk of data loss due to PST corruption.I typically manage a PST file for every calendar year. Once a year a create a new PST file using the process outlined above, and make the create data file as default.
• You can also create sub-folders under the existing Outlook file, by selecting New Folder in the drop down obtained by right clicking on the psd file in Outlook.

Hope it helps 😉

How to modify your Hotmail password in Windows, Android phone, iPhone or iPad?

Applicable to: Outlook.com on Windows (7,8,10), Android and IOS computers, as well as Apple Mail and other 3rd party mail apps on IOS.

Last update: October 2019

This thread started as a question from one of our readers about how to change his Hotmail / Outlook.com / Microsoft Mail password across multiple devices he owns. The original question is shown below:

I would like to change the Hotmail password in my computer. I also own a nice Galaxy Android phone which runs the Outlook.com application. Could you provide some information about how can i modify my account login info without losing access to my inbox, which is critical for me.

Thanks for the question.

Few years ago, Microsoft re-branded their Hotmail web email service and introduced Outlook.com.Still many of us stick to our beloved Hotmail email address, when using Outlook.com.

In this post we’ll answer the question from our reader, as well as provide additional processes to reset your Hotmail login info in Windows and iOS devices. This is particularly important due to increasing amount of attempts to hijack 3rd party web email accounts. It’s a good practice to modify your web email credentials every couple months.

Important Note for Android users: As of February 2019, The Outlook.com app on mobile still doesn’t support Microsoft account login password modification and resets. Hence you should first modify your credentials from the Outlook.com site which you can easily access from your device browser (Edge, IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari). The entire process is detailed in the next section.

Change your Hotmail password

In this section we’ll learn  how you can replace your Microsoft credentials.

Notes:

Please be aware that the Microsoft account password is needed not only for Hotmail, but also for Skype,  Skype for Business, Microsoft Office 365 online and other Microsoft web services.

If this is your first attempt to modify your access credentials, good chances that Microsoft will require to verify your identity by sending a security code to additional mailboxes (by email) or cellular phones (by SMS) that you have provided during your account setup process.

First off, from your favorite web browser, login to the Outlook.com website and access your mailbox.

Then, on the right hand side, hit your user icon.

Next hit Edit Profile.

Now, in the Your Info area, hit Change password.

Next enter your current credentials and your new ones as shown below.

Hit Save.

Back in your mailbox you’ll receive a new incoming message confirming your credentials modification.

What if i forgot my Hotmail login or password

A couple of readers have asked on what should they do in case that they simply don’t remember their Hotmail login credentials.

In that case, you’ll need to reset your password from the Outlook.com login page.

Outlook.com password change on Android

After you modify your password to a new one, proceed as following:

1. On your Android desktop hit the Outlook.com icon
2. You’ll be prompted to enter your new password.
3. Once you do, hit on Sign In and start using Outlook.

Change password for Outlook on IOS (iPhone and iPad, Apple watch devices)

The way to modify your Outlook.com password for IOS depends in which app you’ll be using for accessing your Outlook email.

When using Outlook:

1. On your iPad or iPhone hit the Microsoft Outlook icon.
2. If prompted, change your password.
3. Start using Outlook as usual!

When using the default Mail application:

1. Access the default Apple Mail application.
2. Go to your Outlook.com mailbox.
3. The mailbox will sync up automatically, and you shouldn’t be prompted to change your login details.

Modify Hotmail app password on Iphone, Ipad and Android

First off, if you are still running the legacy Hotmail  app for some reason, consider upgrading, as Outlook.com has much better usability and features. If you opt to continue using your Hotmail app, follow the steps below to change your password in Android phones and Apple devices.

Android Phones :

• Open your email app and press the Menu button and select More.

• Choose Account Settings.

• Then, choose Incoming Settings from the list of options.

• Enter your new password in the Password field and click on Next.

iPods, iPhones and iPads :

• Open Settings from the list of icons in the Home.
• Search for Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap on it.
• The accounts that are accessed via the devices are listed. Choose Hotmail from the list.

• Touch Account in the page that opens.

• Modify the password in the Password field and press Done.

Hope it helps!

Where to find Scanpst.exe file in Outlook 2010?

Here’s a question from one of our readers,

My Outlook profile file (.pst) is corrupted, and I read somewhere that I can scan and repair it using scanpst.exe tool. However I can’t find it in Microsoft Outlook 2010. Where do I look for it?

Thanks for the question. As you have rightly said, the Scanpst.exe scans your corrupted Outlook profile and tries to repair it.

While Scanpst.exe does ship by default with Outlook 2010, it cannot be accessed from within Outlook. In fact, you cannot even run this utility without closing Outlook.

Once you’ve completely exited Outlook, open My Computer and go to Files\Microsoft Office\Office14, and you will find Scanpst.exe there.

How to add your Google Calendar in Outlook 365 / 2019 ?

Last updated: October 2019

Applicable: Office 2016, 2019, 365; Windows and partly applicable to macOS operating systems.

Here is a question we got from one of our readers:

I am right now in the process of installing Outlook 365 software on my new computer. I also use a web version Google Calendar to manage my personal calendar. Wanted to explore the option of using Outlook to access both my personal and business calendars on one client. I would like to ask you if there is a way to view Google calendar in Outlook and probably keep them in Sync?

Thanks for the question.

In this post, we would like to cover two main use cases:

• One direction integration that allows to access but not update the Gmail calendar in Microsoft Outlook.
• Bi-directional updates between Gmail and Outlook calendars.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

Syncing your Gmail Calendar in Outlook

The more trivial integration option is a one direction sync between Outlook and Google Calendar. Outlook becomes the one-stop solution to access your meetings/appointments entries; but you can continue to update your Google Calendar as you see fit, as those will be synced into Outlook.

In this case, changes made in Outlook won’t be reflected in Google Calendar.

• Log into your Google Account, Open Google Calendar.
• In My calendar list, select the particular calendar drop down box and click Calendar Settings.

• Select ICAL in the Private Address.

• Copy your ICAL link (hit Control + C) . Now hit Enter.
• Next open Outlook, click on File and select Account Settings
  
• Now select Account Settings again.
• Navigate to the Internet Calendars section.
• Hit New.
• Now paste (hit Control + D) the URL of your Google Internet Calendar that you previously copied.
• Hit Add
• Click Open Calendar, browse to the your calendar file.
• Done! your calendar is now visible in Outlook.

Note: Support for Internet Calendars is still not available as of Outlook 2019 for MAC OS X.

Bi-directional Sync between Google Cal and Outlook

Couple of more advanced solutions that you might want to try if you are an advanced user:

1. This freely available sync tool allows you to sync your calendars. Note that both one or bi directional updates are available. Support for Office 2019 seems not available at this point.
2. Using Microsoft Flow, you are able to set up an ongoing sync between GMail calendar and Outlook.com (which you are able to easily access via Outlook 365/2019). The caveat here is that you’ll need Outlook.com to sync up the accounts.

Hope it helps!