Lisa Hendrickson is the owner of Call That Girl. She is an Outlook Expert and Microsoft 365 Consultant.
I had a client call in, his Outlook desktop would pop up a window to login, put in his password, then MFA and then just sit and spin in a loop. Would not connect Exchange to Outlook.
After reviewing a few things online and not much matched his issue, I looked at his programs on his computer and it had many Antivirus/VPN and Firewall programs. We ended up removing them all, it would still not complete set up. Then I looked in the credential manager, no accounts listed. I then remembered how deep McAfee and other AV programs can be in the computer, I ran the uninstaller tool from Trend and then rebooted, it worked!
If you found this article, I hope it helped you. If not, please email me with what you eventually find out. You can reach out by using the form below.
I’m not a DNS expert, but here is my story for today. Before I start, what you really need to know is at the end of the article. Feel free to read this article if you enjoy storytelling.
Most of us in IT have heard the joke: “It’s not DNS… it’s never DNS… oh wait, it’s DNS.” Most clients don’t get the joke, and honestly, they never needed to know about it. Until recently. Many of my clients are now “do it yourself” solo business owners. This is where the joke lands, clients don’t know about how fun it is to untangle a DNS problem. Thank you to the internet and the content creators for making do-it-yourself much easier. But DNS is something new for my clients to learn and frankly, not all online searches give you the right answers.
What is DNS? DNS is what tells the internet where your website and email live. Think of DNS like a set of signs posted outside your business. DNS used to be simple and managed by others (not us) and end users (you) didn’t need to change any DNS records. Until technology changed and this little problem called “security and authentication” came into play. What changed? Email security rules did. Google and Yahoo forced the issue.
I learned the basics of DNS around 2009 and frankly, MX records were all I really needed to know back then. Until things changed. In the 2011 timeframe, Microsoft Office 365 Exchange started allowing anyone to purchase their services without a vendor giving end users the freedom to run their own accounts. As I helped my clients, I had to learn more. And I’m going to guess around 2020, the internet changed and scammers/hackers changed everything for us. SPF records were needing to be updated. I was not well versed in SPF record updating, so I had to find an expert to refer work to. Eventually I learned enough on my own but then came DMARC.
In the winter of 2023, Google and Yahoo decided to change the game and required a DMARC record update if you wanted to email their customers. And at this point, I had to yet learn again! Now this year, in the next round of “what else does Lisa need to learn” were DKIM records. These record requests are coming in and I think I figured them out after helping a few clients. Still not an expert but I can assist at least!
Now this is where you come in, and why this matters. DNS updating is a game. Propagation is what gets us, as well as wrong DNS records. Propagation means (in my opinion) “It can take time for the records to change” and we are not in control of that process, nor is anyone really. Some records might instantly update and you think you’re winning, and some can take a few days or even longer. Sometimes a client will call in with a DNS issue that they updated that morning, it might take a few hours or however long for it to complete. MX, CNAME and SPF usually update quickly now and that’s the best news, this is important for migrations to Microsoft Exchange. DKIM and DMARC are the ones that might take more time. And yes, it’s like watching paint dry.
So, if you are a do-it-yourself end user, here are basic DNS records explained in simple terms: (I did ask AI to help on some of this, hard to explain!)
How they work together (simple version)
Final note:
You can buy your domain at any domain registrar and have your DNS records managed by another company. I hope I’m saying this right, but this is the confusing part. This is usually the moment people realize why DNS feels so confusing, because ownership, hosting, and email can all live in different place. You can change the “nameservers” to be hosted elsewhere. Example: I bought my domain at XXX company. I chose to move the nameservers (where the DNS can be managed) to ZZZ company, where the website was going to be hosted. I made all these changes back in 2010 when my website was taken down by hackers. My email was still hosted by XXX company, so the records for MX had to be updated (before I moved to Microsoft Exchange). Confused now? Trust me, back in 2010 I was very confused!
I see this confusion often and this is when clients tend to call me. To figure out where the records need to be updated. Sometimes it’s a game of cat and mouse but we usually figure it out.
If you are reading this and it feels overwhelming, that’s normal. DNS was never meant to be managed by normal end users; it was designed for engineers. If you’re unsure whether your records are set up correctly, or email suddenly stops working, that’s usually your sign to get help before it becomes a bigger issue.
If you need my help, please fill out the contact form below. Thanks! Lisa
Something Went Wrong We ran into an error – Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADDriverStoreAccessNonLocalException
I came across this error trying to launch New Outlook for a client. After reviewing, the typical searches online were already tried and failed, so I read deeper and found that this fix works.
Go to this folder in File Explorer: You can delete the OLK folder completely.
C:\Users\Your user profile name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Olk
Typically I try to back up any data, but since New Outlook doesn’t store local data, there was no back up needed.
New Outlook launched fine after deleting the OLK folder.
If you need my help with any Outlook issues, feel free to get in contact below.
I’m not a VPN expert: But here’s my story today.
Many of my clients are calling in with oddball problems with Outlook and programs needing the internet. For the past few months, the #1 suspect is VPN and very strong firewalls. McAfee, Norton and Malwarebytes are the usual suspects but some clients have a VPN specific product. I get why they want to use a VPN but it can cause issues. With Outlook, VPN is not a friendly companion. If you’re having struggles with Outlook and using a VPN, you might need to contact the company and see if they can add an exclusion for Outlook. Or find another product that is Outlook friendly, or decide if you really need a VPN.
I have a feeling these companies found a hole to promote VPN to people via commercials. In all my years of IT support, only corporate people needed VPN to connect to their business networks. I guess “hiding behind a VPN” helps to some degree, but a VPN will not help if you give out your password online, or stop you from clicking on phishing links. Just my two cents on that today.
If you need my help, feel free to use the form below and contact me.
