There are other posts on the topic of tweaks and plugins to get outlook to stay open when you click "x" to close the window. My question is slightly simpler. Is there some way to keep outlook open, even when you click "x" to close a window with the main program, if you also have a draft email open in a separate window.
Most programs stay open until you close the last window generate by the program. But the default behavior on outlook is to close the entire program as soon as you close the main window (showing your inbox).
11 Answer
There is a free product I use called ReliefJet Quicks that I am quite happy with. It works with my copy of Outlook 2016 x64 running on a Windows 10 x64 machine. There is an option in it that allows you to keep Outlook open when clicking the X button. You can see that in this screenshot:
There used to be some VBA and other plugin solutions, but I haven't found any that work in the current version of Outlook.
Edit: In response to your edit; yes, ReliefJet will still keep Outlook open even if you have a new email open.
Edit 2: I am fairly certain it was here on SE that I first found out about ReliefJet. If you search for it, you will find several references. Apparently, I'm not the only happy customer.
