Contacting Microsoft for support - How?

Domo

Domo

Domo

Soldato
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Surrey, UK
Hi,
I hope someone can offer some advice. I am having an abolute nightmare migrating our domain from an ISP to Microsoft. Basically we're subscribers of Office 365 and we want to use their Exchange server so we had to migrate.

Name servers are showing as Microsoft when running an nslookup against our domain name but I cannot validate the domain via Office 365 - getting an error suggesting the DNS record does not exist.

Sadly - it seems the only form of support is via the Microsoft community. They have been helpful up to a point but now they're not answering my questions - mainly about support!

Considering we're paying for this service the support model is rather dreadful and totally inadequate.

So my question is, how do I phone Microsoft - anyone have any numbers or advice they can offer me?

Thanks!
 
I been using Office 365 support for a while now and they are actually very good, only had a dumbass once who ended up hanging up on me when he discovered he didnt know what he was going on about.

I've never actually let M$ take control of any of the domains of my clients just used the mx record to verify the domain, auto discover does not work but setting up Outlook manually is very easy and will be the same for every user.

Ypu can also log in via mail.office365.com and raise a ticket. Support is 24/7 and is based in the US.
 
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There is a number out there. But I cant remember how I found it (It would have been Google) Got through to an "Indian" lady who was brilliant logged in and fixed my problem for me.
 
EGuitarStar - I hope you can perhaps tell me where I'm going wrong.

I will do my best to keep it short! We lease a domain name from a service provider. We adopted 365 but our mail address looked like [email protected]. Nobody in our organisation likes this + it confuses clients.

So to drop the onmicrosoft part, MS said we had to migrate our domain over and gave me these instructions to pass onto our ISP:

1. Sign in to your domain registrar’s website, and then select the domain that you’re verifying.

2. In the DNS management area for your account, choose the option to add a TXT record for your domain.

3. In the TXT box for the domain, type the following: @

4. In the Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or Points to box, type the following: MS=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

5. Where it asks for TTL information, type the following: 1 Hour

6. Save your changes, and then sign out of your domain registrar’s website. Wait at least 15 minutes for this change to take effect.

7. Sign back into your domain name registrar's website.

8. On the domain registrar's website, locate the section where you can change name server records. This section is typically labelled in one of the following ways:

*Manage Domain
*Nameserver Settings
*DNS Server Settings

9. On the page where you can change name server records, edit the primary and secondary name servers to be ns1.bdm.microsoftonline.com and ns2.bdm.microsoftonline.com, respectively, and then save the new settings.

If I now execute an nslookup I get:

name, class, type, data, time to live
2mconsultancy.com, IN, NS, ns1.bdm.microsoftonline.com, 3600s (1h)
2mconsultancy.com, IN, NS, ns2.bdm.microsoftonline.com, 3600s (1h)

Any ideas? Plus thanks for the info - will log a ticket with MS.

Sorry, should add - when I try to validate the domain in 365's admin console, after about 20 secs I get DNS record not found, wait at least 72 hours (it's been 4 days now).
 
Also, have you tried the alternative method to verify the domain? I believe it is to ad in a mx record, not all domain registars support TXT records.
 
The domain is 2mconsultancy.com. Our ISP said they carried out all the instructions we provided, and they're subsequently telling us it is for Microsoft to resolve.

Cheers,
 
Something is not right, apart from those NS records I cannot see any TXT or MX records. I don't think this is a MS issue but speak to them in any case.

By the way are you sure you want to give M$ control of your domain? Also do you have the control panel details for justhost.com?

Edit: or details to login via http://www.enom.com
 
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We're not entirely comfortable with it. We don't like including the 'onmicrosoft' suffix in our email address since adopting Exchange via 365. MS advised to drop this we need to make the changes in the instructions I included earlier.

Our web site is no longer accessible since the domain name no longer points to the Just Host web server. To be honest it's all a bit of a mess.

Is there away to drop the onmicrosoft part of the email address without migrating the domain? Just Host has said we can roll back the changes so we're back to where we started. Just hope it's not another 72 hours for the DNS record to propagate.

Update - sorry for the poor spelling and grammar, will have to retire to bed soon and resume tomorrow! Thanks for your help - I feel a little reassured there's someone on here who can advise :)
 
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You can drop the onmicrosoft.

Revert back all records, verify the domian using the alternative method which is to add a mx record, once verified add the MX record that MS give you looks something like domain_name.mail.eo.outlook.com set preference to 10 and you can then setup Outlook manualy.

It will take 72 hours to fully propergate over the web but I wouldn't worry, I was up and running within 12 hours.
 
Something really does not look right there, it definitely should have an MX record plus sounds a bit off with the instructions you were provided. I'ld follow EGuitarStar's advice and see if it fixes it for you.

Sometimes Office 365 can get confused, same as their Exchange platform - you could also try manually setting the clients. Yeah Microsoft Support is really hit or miss, preaching to the choir here :).
 
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the advice. We have successfully rolled back and email and web site have been restored. I must admit, Just Host support has been excellent.

Now I need to think about what we're tring to achieve. Some of you have touched on this re the MX record.

So, now we're back at the start here's the situation.

We lease our domain name from Just Host. They originally managed our email and still host our web site (and will continue to do so).

We have Office 365 and like the Exchange features but emails sent from our Outlook clients which point to 365 come from [email protected]

How do we lose the onmicrosoft bit? Remember - I'm a complete novice so tone down the technical terms please! :o:)
 
Hi shopper150 (would like to know the story behind that name!).
In the end it came down to something really stupid on my part. I was using the temporary MX record generated by 365 intended soley for domain verification (I.e. to prove it was ours) as the actual MX record.
Once we figured it out it was plain sailing. We continue to lease the domain from our long term provider along with all the benefits of Exchange. Cool.
 
yourdomain.onmicrosoft.com is actually a free domain you get with office 365, all you have to do is to add your existing domain to office 365, then get it verified, just follow instructions on office 365 website.

Then you can just select from the drop down box your own domain and make it your default domain.


The extra domain is very handy when moving from own exchange server to office365 as it allows you to have email continuity while you move few mailboxes at a time.
 
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