Outlook 2007 to Exchange 2003, just stopped connecting

[WNewquay]

Hi,

I am running on a local area network. Just 7 clients running Outlook 2007.
They are all me, just different machines and I am using Exchange to keep all
my Outlook instances in sync.

Everything was fine until this weekend (Saturday) and now two of the seven
machines will not connect to the Exchange 2003 server. I have not changed
anything.

Things I have tried
- rebooted the Exchange server
- rebooted the client machines
- in the Outlook 2007 clients, I went offline, shut down, restarted, went
online
- Control Panel / Mail / repaired the Exchange connection (nothing to fix
but I let it find the exchange server again by using the IP address and then
"check names". This seemed to force it to recognize the Exchange server and
account again.
- turned off Windows Firewall
- disabled NOD32 (only running on one machine, the other is running OneCare)
- System Restore on both machines to a week before the issue arose
- physically connected to the network at the sam port and cable that is
working with other machines
- update the windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file to include the IP
address and machine name for the Exchange Server


Things I checked
- I can ping the Exchange server
- both by IP address and machine name


Environment
Server: Server 2003
Exchange: Exchange 2003
Clients: Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
Outlook 2007

I would be most grateful for any suggestions on how to get these machines to
work with Exchange again.

Thank you!

 

[WNewquay MVP Tablet PC]

Just a little more information.

This morning I woke up one of the machines from sleep mode and Outlook had
connected to the Exchange server.

The other machine (identical Tablet PC with the nearly the same
configuration) still won't connect. The biggest difference is that the one
that doesn't connect is running Windows Live OneCare - but I don't think
that's the issue. I did a System Restore back to BEFORE I had OneCare
installed and it did not help.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do to get the last machine
connected?

Thanks!

 

[WNewquay MVP Tablet PC]

Update - I just created a new Mail Profile on the machine that would not
connect to Exchange. I set up just one account - the Exchange account and it
connected right away. It is in the process of creating a local copy by
Updating all the folders. (100s of megabytes) but at least it seems to be
working.

I will finish recreating the profile when Exchange finishes sync'ing the
main mailbox and report back if this finally resolves the issue.

In the meantime - if anyone can suggest how this might have happened so I
can avoid the issue in future - Please let me know.

Thanks.

 

[WNewquay MVP Tablet PC]

Quick update - Creating a new profile seems to have solved the problem. I
still don't know why the old profile stopped working but the new one is fine.

If anyone knows why this might have happened in the first place and how the
it might have been avoided please let us know.

In the meantime I just want to clarify that Windows Live OneCare seems not
to have been the culprit. I have that running now without issues. Also ESET
NOD32 is running on a different machine without issues.