Microsoft Outlook Classic Glitch Could Overload Your CPU Usage

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There's a big problem with Microsoft Outlook Classic right now, and the main way for regular users to address it will require a bit of old-school computing. The tech giant confirmed on its support website that CPU usage on a Windows machine can jump by as much as 50 percent when simply typing a message in Outlook Classic in the current build of the email app. That's a startling figure, to be sure, and you can verify if it's happening to you by opening Task Manager while using Outlook. However, you probably won't need to do that because you may also notice your PC moving noticeably slower or even freezing when it occurs.

According to Microsoft, there is a fix for this... sort of. It's more of a temporary workaround, really. While there are detailed instructions available for enterprise Outlook managers, for the average person using Outlook at home, you'll need to become familiar with Command Prompt. Find the app under that name in your Start menu, and once the classic black text field is on your screen, there are a couple of steps to take to work around the problem:

1. Paste "reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d SemiAnnual" into the Command Prompt window and press Enter.
2. Open Outlook.
3. Select File > Office Account > Update Options > Update Now.

Doing all of that will switch you to a different release build of Outlook, which doesn't suffer from the same problem. Ideally, Microsoft will address this issue at some point, and you won't have to worry about it anymore. But for now, that's the fix.