14 DAY TRIAL // While Microsoft is betting big on Outlook, users of the service keep hitting all kinds of issues. And this time, the company is acknowledging a sign-in issue that is experienced for Outlook.com accounts in Outlook.
More specifically, Microsoft says that some users are provided with an error reading “You can’t sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead.” The issue was confirmed earlier this week, with the company saying that a fix is already in the works.
On the other hand, it looks like it’ll take at least a month for the fix to go live.
“You are prompted to sign into Outlook for your Outlook.com account and receive the error dialog below. Or, you already have your Outlook.com account added in the Outlook Profile, but "Need Password" is displayed on the Status Bar. When you attempt to sign in with your Outlook.com account you receive the error dialog below. "You can't sign in here with a personal account. Use your work or school account instead,” Microsoft explains in a support document.
As said, a workaround is already available for the impacted users, and it comes down to turning off the Support Diagnostics by modifying a setting in the Registry Editor.
Here are the steps detailed by Microsoft:
“To work around the issue, you can turn off Support Diagnostics, which turns off the option to submit an In App ticket using Help and then selecting Contact Support. The bug is related to how Outlook is authenticating for the diagnostics in some situations. To turn off Contact Support set the policy in this article and below, Disable support diagnostics in Outlook.”
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General] "DisableSupportDiagnostics"=dword:00000001
The fix is expected to go live by late December, Microsoft says, but further information on the ETA should be shared in the meantime.