You know an email is on its way to your inbox. It’s an important email. You press send and receive and a popup asks you for your username and password. You enter it. No mail. You repeat this process five minutes later and again have to enter username and password. It’s a small issue. You are still able to access your mail but it can be completely frustrating to keep entering the same user credentials, especially when you are waiting for that important email. Well, there is hope. There are some simple things you can check to stop outlook from continuously asking for your username and password.

Microsoft Outlook is used by most businesses around the world and with over a billion users, Microsoft has earned the title of premium business application software provider. You can manage email, time and contacts using Microsoft Outlook, and businesses rely on outlook to share calendars and schedule meetings. The new Outlook 2013 offers even more services like online conferencing. To learn about the new Outlook 2013, sign up to Learn Microsoft Outlook 2013 from Udemy now.

Although most Microsoft applications run smoothly most of the time, there are a few common problems that people experience with the application. One of the common problems experienced by Microsoft Outlook users is that Outlook keeps asking for username or password or both.

Here are some fixes you can try yourself, before calling a technician to stop Outlook from asking for a password:

1. Reboot the computer

2. Check your internet connection

3. Make sure that the ?remember password? option is selected for that account.

4. Check your antivirus software

5. Check the correct user credentials are stored on your computer

6. Disable shared calendars to see if that is causing the problem

Reboot the computer

When faced with problems on your PC one of the first responses you will get from your techie is ?Have you tried to reboot the PC?? It may seem like an excuse to avoid the problem or working but techies know that problems often occur due to an application that has for some reason hit a glitch.

Rebooting your computer resets all of the software on the computer also reloads all of the registry files. This simple solution often corrects the problem. The problem will most likely occur again and you will have to spend time trying to figure out what software you are running that is causing the issue, but as a quick fix, there is nothing quite as easy as a reboot.

So the first thing to try if Outlook suddenly starts asking for your username and password is to try rebooting your PC. Hopefully this quick and easy fix will alleviate your frustration.

Check your internet connection

Depending on whether you are using a laptop or PC, you internet connection may not be stable. On a laptop for example, your laptop may be set to connect to the best WiFi signal within your area. Each time you connect to a new signal, you will be asked for your user credentials. If you are out and about, you may have to live with the frustration until the signal settles down or until you return to your office or home.

If you are working on a PC with an ADSL connection that keeps rebooting for some reason then you could try rebooting the router or if that does not work, then you should contact your service provider to sort out the signal.

Check your Outlook account options

Outlook has an option that allows you to save your username and password. If the above two fixes haven’t solved your problem, then check that you have selected the option to save username and password in Outlook. To check the option is saved, enter outlook and then choose ?Account Settings? under the tools option. These step by step instructions will work for Outlook 2007. For Outlook 2010 and outlook 2013, accessing account setting may vary a little. To learn to harness the power of Outlook 2010, you could sign up to Learn Microsoft Outlook 2010 today from udemy.

For outlook 2007, under your account settings you will see a list of email addresses.

Choose the one that keeps asking for a username and password. The Email account setup screen will open. At the bottom of that screen you will see an option to save your password. Make sure that box has a check mark or tick in it:

Check your antivirus software

Anti-virus software can often cause conflicts within other software. Antivirus software is also generally setup to automatically update its files so an recent update may be what has caused outlook to start asking for a password.

To check if your antivirus software is causing the problem, deactivate the software and see if the problem persists.

Check your credential manager settings

If you have rebooted your computer, and checked that the ?remember password? field has been checked, then it’s time to check that the correct user credentials have been stored in your credentials manager.

To access your credential manager on windows you need to go to your control panel and then click credential manager:

The credential manager stores passwords for your various applications so it’s a good idea to check that the password and username that is stored for your email address is correct.

Shared Calendars

Shared calendars in Outlook can often impact the user credentials and using shared calendars often causes Outlook to ask for a password. To alleviate the problem, see if disabling the shared calendar stops the continuous requests for a password.

For a course on how to harness the power of Outlook, sign up for the Outlook 2007 Advanced course from udemy today.

Further password fixes

Further outlook password fixes involve working within your computer’s registry files. These fixes require expert knowledge and can affect your whole system, it is therefore advisable to call a qualified computer technician if the fixes we have shared above do not work.

Source: UDEMY