Setting up Outlook 2016 against our on premise Exchange 2013. In older Outlook I always picked Manual setup, entered the server name and was done. That whole option is gone.
The wizard only asks for an email address, spins for a while and fails. Where did manual Exchange setup go?
It did not move, it was removed. Outlook 2016 dropped manual Exchange configuration entirely. The client now requires Autodiscover, meaning it resolves the server itself from your email domain. If the wizard fails, your Autodiscover record is broken or missing. No amount of digging in the interface brings the old screen back.
So the fix happens in DNS, not in Outlook. Your admin needs one of these working: an autodiscover.yourdomain.com record pointing at the Exchange server or an SRV record _autodiscover._tcp.yourdomain.com doing the same.
You can prove where it breaks from your desk: Ctrl+right click the Outlook icon in the system tray, choose Test E-mail AutoConfiguration, enter your address, untick both Guessmart boxes and run. The log tab shows exactly which URLs Outlook tried and what each returned.
One trap in mixed environments: if the mailbox domain also has Office 365 set up, Outlook 2016 checks 365 first and can get stuck there. The ExcludeExplicitO365Endpoint DWORD set to 1 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover forces it back to your on premise records.
Test AutoConfiguration showed it querying Office 365 endlessly because our domain had a trial tenant from years ago. The registry value fixed it and the account configured in seconds.