In case you run into slow account setup with Outlook and/or Exchange 2016, which can take up to 10 mins or more, here’s a possible fix. Add the following key to your registry:

Outlook 2010:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover]

“ExcludeHttpsRootDomain“=dword:00000001

Outlook 2013:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover]

“ExcludeHttpsRootDomain“=dword:00000001

Outlook 2016:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover]

“ExcludeHttpsRootDomain“=dword:00000001

It is assumed this is caused by some bug in Outlook/Exchange that causes the system to try a little too hard to obtain a response from the Autodiscover directory on your root domain. If the domain resolves in DNS but does not respond to HTTP queries (i.e. you don’t have an actual server to acknowledge them), this will cause timeout error and Outlook will try repeatedly.

If you wait long enough (11 attempts or so, each taking at least 30 seconds), Outlook will actually give up and move on. But if you don’t like waiting, the reg key above will force Outlook to bypass this particular check and it will continue to the next method. So as a result the process will take a substantially smaller amount of time.