{"id":433,"date":"2011-05-07T22:17:29","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T02:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/07\/the-connection-to-microsoft-exchange-is-unavailable-outlook-must-be-online-or-connected-to-complete-cant-add-outlook-accounts\/"},"modified":"2011-05-07T22:17:29","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T02:17:29","slug":"the-connection-to-microsoft-exchange-is-unavailable-outlook-must-be-online-or-connected-to-complete-cant-add-outlook-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikemartinezonline.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/07\/the-connection-to-microsoft-exchange-is-unavailable-outlook-must-be-online-or-connected-to-complete-cant-add-outlook-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete – Cant add Outlook accounts…"},"content":{"rendered":"

How I recently fixed one hell of an Outlook 2007 to Exchange 2003 connection problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This occurred on brand new Windows 7 Enterprise AND brand new Windows XP workstations while trying to configure the Outlook clients to connect to our Exchange 2003 server. <\/p>\n

The actual error is:
"The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete – Cant add Outlook accounts.." <\/p>\n

Worse still is that this problem did not occur one every new workstation! Windows XP or Windows 7 – only some random ones. <\/p>\n

I checked all network\/connectivity parameters I could – DNS, LDAP, RPC, TCP\/IP etc., and otherwise checked routing and name resolution ad nauseum. And all checked out.
I had this problem a year or so ago but could not find any of my notes! Aggravating to no end. So I swore I would make sure to document my fix when I found one.
So Google here I come…. <\/p>\n

One of the first things I did then was this:
http:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/kb\/913843\/en-us<\/a><\/p>\n

I checked that the ‘Attendant’ service was running on Exchange; it has been for a few years. <\/p>\n

And virtually everything mentioned in every article I could find – 5 days of searching and hundreds of pages!!
Like:
http:\/\/social.technet.microsoft.com\/Forums\/en-US\/exchangesvrclients\/thread\/44a24ec6-33b5-4b66-9fdb-2318b4874fbc<\/a><\/p>\n

and <\/p>\n

http:\/\/social.technet.microsoft.com\/Forums\/en-US\/exchangesvrclients\/thread\/1227b956-c533-4c08-b56d-150ad8486b4c<\/a><\/p>\n

I also tried importing the Outlook registry keys from machines (both Windows 7 and Windows XP) that do work – still no joy. <\/p>\n

I literally went 11 pages deep on Google http:\/\/goo.gl\/EddW9<\/a> and many, many more deep from each of those, looking for a fix! <\/p>\n

I read deep somewhere in one post that someone mentioned running ‘Outlook rpcdiag’ – I don’t remember that switch. I checked RPC on the machine(s) and it showed no errors already right..<\/p>\n

But since this was a specific ‘Outlook’ switch I though what the hell.
So…
I ran:
"outlook \/rpcdiag" from the command line. <\/p>\n

It tried to ‘find connections error’ but did not report anything. Damn..
Then it just closed after it could not really start. <\/p>\n

Then I started Outlook in Safemode (I was prompted to upon launching Outlook, but it can be run "outlook \/safe"). <\/p>\n

I was then able to add and configure the Exchange account and get connected!!
I waited until it updated the mailbox completely.
Then I restarted Outlook normally and IT WORKS NOW on all of the affected boxes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not sure if all of these steps need to be taken but I now have a plan to follow. <\/p>\n

I hope this may help someone, because from most of the posts I read it is a MAJOR issue and MS is not doing much about it! At least I\u2019ll have my notes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How I recently fixed one hell of an Outlook 2007 to Exchange 2003 connection problem. This occurred on brand new Windows 7 Enterprise AND brand new Windows XP workstations while trying to configure the Outlook clients to connect to our Exchange 2003 server. The actual error is: "The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook … Continue reading “The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete – Cant add Outlook accounts…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,171,172,173,13,11,15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exchange","category-microsoft-exchage","category-microsoft-outlook","category-outlook","category-tech-tips","category-windows","category-windows-7","category-windows-xp"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t