Vista, Outlook 2007, Exchange Server 2003 - HELP!

[Kris63]

Many seem to have similar or related problems but I haven't been able to find
an answer that helps me.

Background: New Laptop with Vista Home Premium, MS Office 2007 installed and
the office runs Exchange Server 2003 (fully patched as far as I know).

Problem: Cannot connect to the exchange server using HTTP (had no problems
with old laptop running XP).

Facts: (i) finding my mail box/username on the Exchange Server during the
Mail setup process on my laptop - no problem; (ii) setting up the connection
using HTTP via proxy settings - no problem; (iii) completeing the Mail setup
- no problem.

Symptoms: When I open up Outlook, I get prompted for username/pwd (so far so
good), but that's it! Either Outlook times out without ever opening up or I
get error messages that Outlook can't connect to server.

Additional Info: (i) accessing the exchange server via Outlook Web - no
problem; (ii) accessing the exchange server via VPN - no problem; (iii) have
tried accessing from other laptop also running Vista (same setup) - same
problem!!

Would be very grateful for soem help (anyone from Microsoft?)
Thanks

[Kris63]

I should mention that the most common error message I get when Outlook fails
to open up is: "Cannot open your default email-folders. Your must connect
to Microsoft Exchange with the current profile before you can synchronize
your folder with your offline folder files."

[DL]

You'd be better off posting to an outlook group, rather than an o/s group

[AndyMurdoch]

Kris,
did you ever find a solution for this problem?
thanks

[hrmilo]

I fixed this by adding an entry to my hosts file.

Outlook could not resolve the hostname it was using for the exchange server.

If you ever notice, when setting up your Exchange profile, the server IP address or hostname that YOU supply will automatically be replaced by the hostname the exchange server communicates back.



If this hostname happens to be an internal hostname or otherwise unresovable by Outlook when you thereafter open Outlook for the first time, then you will receive this error.



In my case, the exchange server was communicating back an internal non-public hostname and so I added an entry for it to the windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file. Example:



192.168.11.14 exchange.intranet.mycompany.com

[AndyMurdoch]

The solution I found related to the firewall.
It's detailed in this technet page
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939321

The firewall fix worked for me.