Microsoft cancels Exchange Online's Basic Auth service after: disable Autodiscover

CTOnews.com, Nov. 17, Microsoft began canceling Exchange Online's Basic Authentication service last month after several notifications in the past few months. It was previously reported that users could still use Basic Auth until the end of the year before moving to Modern Authentication (OAuth 2.0). Microsoft released more follow-up information today.

In an updated official blog post today, Microsoft said that after canceling Exchange Online's Basic Authentication service, it doesn't make much sense to keep Autodiscover running.

CTOnews.com learned that Autodiscover is the protocol used by Outlook, Exchange ActiveSync, and other Exchange Web Services (EWS) clients and custom code to find service location endpoints. You can read more Microsoft documentation about its architecture and functionality here.

Microsoft said that starting today, customers who do not use Basic Auth will automatically disable Autodiscover. However, the entire deployment will be staggered, and tenants who do not use Modern Auth will be excluded.