Our organization received its update to Dynamics 365 in February and we are still exploring all of the new features available to us - , , and . But what about one of the most reliable tools = the Dynamics 365 for Outlook Client? Have there been any major changes to how it works?
Well after working with Dynamics 365 for a month, I hadn't really put much thought into the Outlook client as it seemed to just work as it always did. Also, in the past the Outlook client seemed to update automatically through Windows Update and so I just assumed I had the latest build.
So I was helping a client the other day with some CRM and Outlook issues and realized how far behind I was in updates.
The build number of my Outlook client was 8.0.0.1088, his build number was 8.1.0.371. So I took some time looking on Microsoft website and found the latest client, and proceeded to download and install.
Now if you are just starting out with the CRM/Outlook connector, Follow the instructions However this actually does not install the latest updates. I tried installing from Windows update but was unable. Finally I found this link to download the December 2016 Dynamics 365 Update. After clicking on the Download button - I selected the 32 bit outlook client - It goes by the file name CRM2016-Client-KB3205084-ENU-I386.exe. If you are using 64 bit Office, then download the 64 bit Outlook Client - CRM2016-Client-KB3205084-ENU-Amd64.exe.
So here is where things got tough - no matter what I did I was unable to install this update. I received an error message indicating a problem in the Windows registry.
Action Microsoft.Crm.UpdateWrapper.SetPatchToUnremovableAction failed.
Couldn't find Registry Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM\
Couldn't find Registry Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSCRM\
Obviously a registry key was missing but where? After a short google search, I found the Dynamics community website. The solution was a matter of using Regedit to add an MSCRM Key at the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\ Node.
After saving the changes I was able to install the update. So what changed with this update? Well it seemed mostly cosmetic to me, but in a good way. The ribbon buttons seemed cleaner and labels were updated to reflect Dynamics 365 branding. The version number was updated to 8.2.0.749. But other than that the Outlook client seemed the same as previous versions - no new functionality. 
So should you update to the latest Outlook client? I'd say yes - the cleaner icons and updated labels are about the only changes I can see, but they look pretty good to me. I hope that as Microsoft continues to improve Dynamics 365 CRM, they continue to improve the quality of the Outlook client as it is still the primary way salespeople and other users like to work with Dynamics 365.
