A few days ago, Microsoft manifested something that had been a long time coming: forced installation of the new Outlook app on Windows 10 PCs by way of the February 2025 mandatory update. This is the next step in Microsoft’s push to make the new Outlook commonplace.
Previously, Microsoft had emphasized that there was no way to prevent the forced installation of new Outlook. But that was a lie. Apparently there’s a trick you can use to prevent new Outlook’s forced installation, spotted by Windows Latest.
Preventing new Outlook’s installation
The new Outlook app is forcibly installed on every Windows 10 PC that receives the KB5051974 update. This is a security update that fixes several system vulnerabilities, so you shouldn’t skip it.
To prevent the new Outlook from being installed along with the mandatory update, you have to edit the Windows registry:
Note: Only make changes to the Windows registry if you’re familiar with it. If not, we recommend first reading our guide to the deadliest Windows sins that could harm your PC. One wrong tweak to the Windows registry could crash or permanently damage your system!
- Open the Start menu, search for
Registry Editor, and launch it. - In Registry Editor, navigate to the following location in the left-hand navigation pane:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\Orchestrator\UScheduler_Oobe - With UScheduler_Oobe selected, go to the right-hand pane, right-click on an empty area, and select New > String Value.
- Right-click on the new REG_SZ entry and select Rename. Change its name to
BlockedOobeUpdaters. - Right-click on the same entry and select Modify. Change the value data to
["MS_Outlook"]. - Close Registry Editor.
With that done, Windows 10 won’t force-install the new Outlook. But you’ll need to do this before every subsequent Windows 10 update. Outlook will be included again with the upcoming March 2025 patch, and likely with all future Windows 10 patches.
Uninstalling new Outlook after the fact
If it’s already too late and you’ve already had the new Outlook force-installed on your PC, not all is lost. You can simply uninstall it — but unlike other apps, you can’t uninstall it via the usual methods. Instead, you have to make changes using Windows PowerShell.
Right-click the Start menu button and select Terminal (Admin) to launch PowerShell as administrator. Then, enter the following command in PowerShell and press Enter:
Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -AllUsers -Online -PackageName (Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.OutlookForWindows).PackageFullName
The advantage of this method is that you aren’t just removing the new Outlook app but also ensuring that it isn’t reinstalled in the future.
Just be careful not to accidentally launch the Mail or Calendar apps, which are no longer supported and may end up installing the new Outlook app on your system. Fortunately, you can use PowerShell to uninstall those apps as well using this command:
Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where {$_.DisplayName -match "microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps"} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName {$_.PackageName}
Does any of this make sense?
In itself, there’s nothing wrong with installing the new Outlook on your computer. It’s simply a newer version of an older app, right? It doesn’t take up much space and it doesn’t really interfere.
But it’s questionable for Microsoft to pursue this kind of forced app installation. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially when you consider that Microsoft is also forcing installation of Windows 11 24H2, which has been causing problems for months now.
It’s up to you how you deal with this information. If you want to find out more about the new Outlook app, check out our overview of the new Outlook and tips for using the new Outlook app.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
