How Outlook 2011 Connects To Exchange 2010 SP1+
This is a very confusing topic. There are lot of contradictory statements from Microsoft employees itself in the various forums. Let me clear the confusion for once and all. The main point of debate is whether Outlook 2011 running on a domain joined Mac uses the SCP record to connect to Exchange, just like Outlook…
This is a very confusing topic. There are lot of contradictory statements from Microsoft employees itself in the various forums. Let me clear the confusion for once and all.
The main point of debate is whether Outlook 2011 running on a domain joined Mac uses the SCP record to connect to Exchange, just like Outlook 2007+ and configures the profile automatically or whether it works like an Outlook Anywhere connection.
One of the Microsoft employee (don’t want to name him) says in the Microsoft forum that it uses SCP while the Mac is domain joined.
This is NOT the case. Irrespective of whether the Mac is domain joined or not, it does not use the SCP record. The way it works is similar to an Outlook anywhere connection, which we are familiar with. When a domain joined Mac user launches Outlook 2011, it checks the primary email address of the user (the part after @) and tries to find a an autodiscover record in the following ways (taken from Microsoft site).
Once it establishes a connection and receives the internal and external connection settings (urls), the internal urls will be tried first. If the user is using a domain joined Mac, the internal connection will be successful and all is good. If not, Outlook 2011 uses the external urls and works like an Outlook Anywhere connection.
Check this link for a detailed explanation. Hope this clears the confusion 
hi there,
I can connect to exchange2010 from outlook 2011 on the mac and send and create out of office, but it says its downloading messages and never does its just all blank. The folders are browseable though just no received messages. Do you know what the issue might be?
hi Andi,
Is the profile configured using autodiscover or manually?
This is an odd one as historically Entourage/Outlook for Mac has never used any form of AD integration so not sure why MSFT would be say such a thing without checking with the Outlook 2011 product support group first or their in house knowledge base. Considering the older clients used WebDav its stands to reason Outlook 2011 would use EWS which is supported in the native mail clients for Mac since Exchange 2007. Either way if clients were external and not domain joined they would have no choice but to use EWS.
Thanks Shawn.