New Outlook

[joejoejoe]

Our corporate IT guys haven't gotten approval on the new outlook yet, so I'm stuck with features that feel a decade old.

Tempted to install the new preview.

Is it usable? Are there big bugs? Any downside to me installing it?

They basically gave me a "do so at your own risk" saying that it's a beta and full of huge bugs etc.

But I don't usually trust anything they say. Our point IT guy types with his index fingers if that gives you a sense of the people I'm dealing with.

Thank you!

 

[campyguy]

I have not had any issues with the latest two updates, however, there's one element of your post that might keep you from trying it out - you related "old" Outlook...

First, you'd need an Office 365 account with an MS account - at least, that was the prerequisite to download the new version of Outlook (so, I might be off on this point).

New Outlook now requires Yosemite, and it will not export data yet (there's no provision for exporting, if you ever want to go back to Outlook 2011). And, the new version of Outlook will only import data from Outlook 2011 14.2 or greater.

I ignored my IT guy - it's my company. No data lost, but I'm treading carefully - I'm using Outlook 2013 in a Parallels VM running Windows 8.1, with the new Mac Outlook more-or-less mirroring my accounts. The new Mac version does talk to an Exchange Server but your IT department needs to set it up - autodiscover has been a bit wonky. Good luck!