[German]I'm posting an observation here in the blog that a reader pointed out to me. In environments with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Office 2021, there are problems with accessing the Exchange Online archive archive. It depends on the license, whether you can access the Exchange Online archive archive.
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Microsoft Office 365 and Office 2021
First, let's briefly explain the difference between the Microsoft Office license models. With Microsoft Office, users have the option of opting for the cloud-centric and subscription-based Microsoft Office 365 solution. Depending on the channel, new features are added to this Office version on a monthly or semi-annual basis. When the subscription expires, only limited basic functions of the Office package can be used.
Alternatively, there is the option of purchasing versions such as Microsoft Office 2021 or Microsoft Office 2024. These Office versions are paid for once at the time of purchase, but no longer receive any new features, only bug fixes and security updates during their (5-year) life cycle. At the end of the life cycle, this Office version can continue to be used, but will no longer receive support.
What is Exchange Online archiving/archive storage?
Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is an enterprise-level, cloud-based archiving solution from Microsoft 365 for organizations, according to this Microsoft page. The solution is aimed at customers who have subscribed to Microsoft Exchange Server 2019, Microsoft Exchange Server 2016, or certain Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 plans.
Exchange Online Archiving supports organizations with archiving, compliance, legal and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery challenges, Microsoft writes. The solution currently costs just under 3 $/month per user, as you can read here.
No access to Exchange Online archive in Office 2021?
Customers who use Exchange Online archiving should of course be able to access the archive storage. Blog reader Alex told me about an interesting experience he had with one of his customers regarding Exchange Online and the online archive.
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The customer in question uses Exchange Online archiving. Microsoft Office 365 (subscription) and Microsoft Office 2021 (purchase license) are used in the workforce. The blog reader discovered the following:
- As soon as Microsoft Office 2021 is used, he cannot see the online archive storage and cannot integrate it into Office.
- The customer's other two users, who work with Office 365 Business Standard on their clients, see the online archive immediately.
The reader then went and uninstalled Microsoft Office 2021 on the computer in question. He then purchased and installed a Microsoft Office 365 subscription in the Microsoft portal.
After changing the license, this user was also able to work with the online archive, as expected. The blog reader asks himself the question "whether Microsoft Office 365 in combination with Exchange Online is mandatory in order to be able to store his emails in the archive storage"?
Stupid, it's the license
Looking around on the Internet, Microsoft definitely seems to limit access to Exchange Online archiving to Microsoft 365 subscriptions. But German blog reader Chris mentioned in this comment, that Outlook client of the Office 2021 packages only supports accessing the Exchange Online archive in the LTSC Professional Plus version (see).
And another German blog reader commented: Under Exchange 2019 on prem, the archive can only be used if you have an Outlook professional or Office Professional Plus installation for Outlook. In this case, the archive is displayed via OWA and not via Outlook. You need to have the right version installed. Microsoft already knows how to make money.
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This has been the situation for 8+ years.
If you use Office standalone you need at least professional plus license, not standard or home & business. In the past you could also purchase Outlook standalone and that worked too, but I guess that license type doesn't exist anymore.
If you don't have the correct license for your office or outlook standalone, then you can still use the archiving function, just to access the archive you'll need to use OWA.