Create an Outlook 2016 profile that has no email accounts for troubleshooting connection issues

There may be times where you need to enable Outlook logging to capture the account creation process which may be failing in Outlook. Use the steps below to create a PIM (Personal Information Manager) profile in Outlook.

1. Close Outlook if it is running.
2. Open the Mail item in Control Panel, and then click Show Profiles.
3. Click Add in the Mail dialog box.
4. Type PIM for the name of the new profile, and then click OK.
5. In the Auto Account Setup window, click Cancel.
6. Click OK when you are prompted to create a profile that contains no e-mail accounts.
7. Check the feature Prompt for a profile to be used.
8. Click OK to close the Mail item.
9. Start Outlook and on the Outlook 2016 Welcome screen, click Next.
10. In the Add and Email Account dialog box, select the No, and then click Next.
11. Check Use Outlook without an email account feature and click Finish.

This will launch Outlook 2016 without any email accounts setup. You can enable logging by going to File > Options > Advanced > Other and checking the Enable troubleshooting logging (requires restarting Outlook) feature. Restart Outlook and add the email account by going to File > Add Account tab. Type in the details of the account which you are troubleshooting and click Next. The autodiscover process will kick off and will be captured under %temp%\outlook logging folder. The ETW logs which are in the format Outlook-########.etl will be the logs that need to be reviewed for root causes. The logs can only be reviewed thru Microsoft.