Microsoft has confirmed a bug in its classic Outlook email client that could cause users to see their computer’s CPU load increase by up to 50% when simply typing in the app. Interestingly, the first reports of this appeared back in November last year, but the software giant has yet to release a patch to fix it. Instead, Microsoft continues to recommend changing your Outlook update channel as a temporary solution.
Image source: Microsoft
About six months after the first complaints appeared, Microsoft began investigating the issue and was even able to reproduce the problem in one of the versions of the application released in mid-2024. The developers reported that, indeed, when typing in the classic version of Outlook, an increase in processor load in the range of 30% to 50% can be observed, which is especially noticeable on less productive PCs.
At the same time, there is currently no specific solution to the problem in the form of a patch that returns the classic Outlook to normal functionality. Instead, Microsoft recommends that users change the update channel to one where the aforementioned problem is not observed. For organizations, the software giant has prepared detailed instructions that describe the process of switching using group policies, Office deployment tools on user PCs, and System Center Configuration Manager infrastructure management tools. Ordinary users will only need to make a number of changes to the Windows registry.