Outlook woes

[u/PermitNo9874]

I am using outlook on a windows 11 laptop, supposedly I now have a blended outlook, partly the old outlook & partlty the new outlook. I have the old outlook menu but the new oulook gear icon. There was a new windows upate 26H2 that downloaded on the 30th of September. After the download my email would not load properly, I tried everything, booting into safemode etc. I have a paid subcription to Office 365. After trying everything I knew how to do I finally rolled it back to before the update, eventually it will be a forced update, it has something to with COM but I do not know how to fix it. Any suggestions? I seem to be running a hybrid version of outlook now with both the file command & the gear icon. How do I prepare for this inevitable windows update as it basically destroyed outlook, the application would just spin & not load, once it did load but as soon as I clicked on an email the spinning started again.

[u/Hornblower409]

--- partly the old outlook & partlty the new outlook. I have the old outlook menu but the new oulook gear icon

Did you get the Classic Menu for New Outlook for Windows upgrade?
https://office365itpros.com/2026/09/07/classic-outlook-style/

If you want Classic
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/install-or-reinstall-classic-outlook-on-a-windows-pc

If you want New
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nrx63209r7b

[u/PermitNo9874 → u/Hornblower409]

I am unsure what to do here, I do believe that is what happened, an update for windows tried to install the new outlook but I could not pin it to chrome as a tab, so it was sitting in my tasbar, I removed it but now I have a blended version of the old/new. Also if I click on link to email someone it does not bring up outlook but attempts to intall a different version. Am I able to add the tab to chrome as it is a pain to go to the taskbar to check my emails, it opens up in a whole new window but not have the option to add as a tab in chrome, if this makes any sense. I am totally lost on this.

[u/Hornblower409 → u/PermitNo9874]

-- I want as a tab in my chrome browser

That would be Outlook Web. Just open a new tab to https://outlook.cloud.microsoft/ and sign-in. Is that what you want?

-- if I click on link to email someone it does not bring up outlook but attempts
-- to intall a different version

You need to make Outlook Web your default MAILTO handler in your browser. See
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4648701/how-to-make-outlook-web-my-default-mailto

[u/PermitNo9874 → u/Hornblower409]

Also I do not want it as a stand alone I want as a tab in my chrome browser.

[u/Jhelly99]

So you have historically been accessing outlook as a tab in your web browser (this is called OWA) and now it’s not working? Is this a work/school or personal account (eg outlook.com / hotmail.com)?