Problem with Outlook 2007 SP2 accessing Exchange 2003

We have Exchange 2003 SP2 in our environment, it's been working flawlessly
for years.

Last night we upgraded our desktop PC's with Microsoft Office 2007 Service
Pack 2, since doing we have encountered an issue with access to an Exchange
server over VPN connection.

We simply get a message saying;

Outlook cannot log on. Verify you are connected to the network and are using
the proper server and mailbox name. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is
unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

We can ping the server by name and by IP and it replies perfectly, we can
also connect to Outlook web access from desktop PC's so everything is working.

This only seems to have happened since we rolled out SP2 for Office 2007.

Has anyone else encountered this issue, if so what was the fix.

We are not using RPC over HTTP so all the technical articles I have found
dont exactly relate to our problem. We also checked KB927481 and it doesnt
relate to our problem, neither does the article about RPC registery entries.

Don't have the same problem, but I am sure it is connected as it only started
when SP2 applied. Have outlook 2007 connected to a hosted exchange server,
and keep getting connection problems.
Outlook tries to look up an e-mail address but gets teh message 'Outlook
needs to be online to perform this action' I change it to offline and the
action happens. This is true of appointments and contacts.

See Outlook 2007 SP2 cannot open address list on Exchange Server

for others having similar problems?

Remove network cable reboot and login in, connect network cable and
try Outlook.

[lupe]

It is a problem where Outlook files stay open even after close for some time and SP2 causes the connection status to go into limbo. Even after the reboot. So to fix, remove network cable and reboot, log in, connect network cable and then run Outlook. Hope this helps.

May be this works with Outlook 2007 SP1 but it doesn’t work at all with
Outlook2007 SP2. I have tried several times still no joy.

I can connect to my exchange server 2003 if I logged as domain user on my
computer but if I am logged as Local user than I can’t get to exchange
server. Error I am getting is "The connection to Microsoft Exchange is
unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action."

If you be able to uninstall Office 2007 SP2 from your computer then you can
connect to exchange server 2003 as local user also.

we have experienced this problem also. Installing Office 2007 SP2
breaks Outlook 2007 connections to our hosted Exchange 2003 server (on
Vista pc's only).

We have used 2 MS hotfixes to remedy this. The first worked on 3 pc's
and not the last. The 2nd hotfix listed here worked on the last one
though.

1. kb933493
2. kb968858

So can you try creating new exchange email profile under outlook 2007
after applying the SP2 update for Office 2007? If this works please
let me know? At the moment to setup exchange mailbox in outlook 2007,
I setup the profile and applies the office 2007 updates

kb968858- worked for me too

[jdguy13]

the following worked for me

Control Panel --> Mail --> E-mail Accounts --> Highlight "Microsoft Exchange" and select "change" --> More settings --> Security --> Logon network security --> change to "Password Authentication (NTLM)

[Dragonwight]

I had the same issue when SP2 was applied i couldnt attach to our exchange server. You need to make sure that not only can you ping and connect to your exchange server but also your global catalog server too. If your using a hosts file at the end of a vpn then i suggest adding an entry for your gc server.

see this kb article

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969519/