outlook2003 & Exchange 2003. A poser.......

gandhi

gandhi

gandhi

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I'm hoping the knowledgeable bods on here will be able to help me out.

My work have recently started running our appointment calendar and email on exchange server 2003. I'm currently having a baby trying to get outlook 03 to connect to the server. I have set it up exactly as instructed on the exchange website but when I try to log on, all I get is.....

'The connection to microsft exchange server is unavailable Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action'
Click to expand...

I can connect using the web-interface, but there seems to be some problem somewhere. I've tried opening various ports in my firewall, but it doesn't appear to help so I'm guessing it is a problem with RPC over HTTP somewhere.

Any suggestions greatfuly received!
 
Is this from home?

Where I work if I want to connect to the Exchange server via Outlook I would need to VPN in first.

Otherwise I can set it up as an IMAP account on outlook.

Justin
 
Yeah it's from home.

Not sure about VPN, no suggestion has been made about it at work, or in m,y setup instructions.

You'll have to forgive my basic knowledge here, all things camera's and hardware related I can deal with. Networking of any description fries my brain!
 
I would agree that its a networking problem- you may have the RPC over HTTP ports open on YOUR firewall, however I doubt they will be open to the outside world on your work's firewall (and if they were , I would personally go up to your network manager and headshot him). The solutions therefore:

1. Establish a VPN tunnel to your work network so you can use Exchange in a transparent manner
2. Your work may provide an alternative method of connecting to your mailbox (such as IMAP) ask your IT support if that's the case
3. Stick with OWA
 
Yeah RCP over HTTP can be tricky to set up. Have your IT support people confirmed that it's supposed to be working? You have to correctly set up your SSL certificates, etc on the server otherwise it just won't work.

M0KUJ1N: Why wouldn't you have your HTTPs port open? It's a pretty standard port to have open, in fact if you are using OWA on a secure connection it will already be open.
 
oddjob62 said:
Yeah RCP over HTTP can be tricky to set up. Have your IT support people confirmed that it's supposed to be working? You have to correctly set up your SSL certificates, etc on the server otherwise it just won't work.
Click to expand...
This is a valid point - when you use OWA (over https), does a box popup stating that there is a problem with the certificate? Self-certified SSL certificates aren't automatically trusted, and need to be installed in order for Outlook to work.

Also, try running outlook /rpc to see diagnostics and you can see whether it's getting anywhere.

Check with your work that they've actually set everything up correctly and that they've managed to get it to work. It is a bit of a dark art sometimes!

Lastly, check this howto doc on setting it up. The server-side stuff won't be of any use to you, but it has some info on setting up client-side (including the stuff I've mentioned above)

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Outlook_2003_Connect_Exchange_2003.html
 
Thanks for the prompt replies guys.

The security certificate is fine, first time I accessed the OWA site I had the box out that asks if I want the certificate etc. So that's all ok as it's been accepted.

Think I'll have to pop into the office on monday and try to get some more info. We're only a small company (about 6 people) so we don't have an IT dept as such!


My setup is pretty much the same as detailed in the link above. Tried changing the settings to exactly the same and no difference alas.

will carry on fiddling and testing!
 
I'm an idiot!


Installed security certificate via firefox. Just visited OWA with explorer, reinstalled the security certificate and voila!


Thanks again for your time peeps!
 
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