[German]Microsoft seems to have shipped a new bug in Outlook with the late June 2023 Office updates. A blog reader pointed out to me that he is struggling with the problem that every time he starts Outlook, it asks if windows open in the previous session should be reopened. However, there are no windows to reopen and the options to disable the prompt are missing from the settings. More Outlook users have this problem. The remedy is a direct registry entry.
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Outlook startup prompts to reopen closed windows
Some programs offer the possibility to reopen document windows opened in the previous session at the next start. Outlook probably also has this option. German blog reader Tobias Migge pointed out a problem on Twitter, which he was facing in his Outlook environment (thanks for that).
In Tobias's case, Outlook is asking since a few days at every startup if windows opened in the previous session should be reopened, even though there are no windows to open. And the options to turn off the prompt have disappeared in the settings. The following screenshot of the thread in question sums up the issue (I've translated the German text below):
Outlook has been annoying me for days at every startup with the question whether open windows should be restored when closing, although they do not exist. This question cannot be turned off either, because the area in the options is gone:
In the German screenshot shown above you can see that the startup options group in question has no options in the general Outlook settings (the group is empty). There are also posts on English sites, showing similar settings (see here).
Source: askwoody.com forum
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This gets really nasty when no windows were open, but the prompt keeps appearing. There are probably more users affected and there is a registry hack as a solution.
Set a registry key as solution
Tobias already pointed me on Twitter to a solution he found on askwoody.com in this forum thread from early July 2023. There, the effect has also been described by a user. The remedy, according to this post, is the following registry entry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences]
"ReopenWindowsOption"=dword:00000000
The forum post states:
For that dword, set 0 to get a prompt, set 1 to never reopen, or set 2 to always reopen.
If the 32-bit DWORD value ReopenWindowsOption is set to 0, the prompt to open the windows from the previous session will appear. With value 1 the prompt should not appear anymore and with value 2 the corresponding windows opened in the previous session will be opened without prompt.
In the askwoody forum thread, some people wrote that in their case the key was missing and had to be added. Here is a corresponding post:
My MS Office Home and Business 2019 C2R is on the current Version 2306 / Build 16529.20154 (rel. 26-Jun-2023) and I also do not have a REG_DWORD registry entry for ReopenWindowsOption at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Preferences. I don't know if the latest update has removed that registry entry or if it even existed before Version 2306 was installed.
One user writes that the key was probably lost during an Office update. It is said that Microsoft has already been informed about the bug. On Microsoft Answers there is also a longer thread My Outlook 2016 "Start Up Options menu" has no drop down submenu about that bug. Thanks to the reader for the hint and the solution.
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Finally a solution! Many thanks for pointing it out Herr Günter Born. It's an irritating problem, since long neglected by MS. Creating the mentioned DWORD in the registry got rid of it.