Outlook reluctant to connect to exchange server under XP

[NickieO]

Just migrated to Fusion- much snappier and more solid than my previous Virtualization SW.

However I work for a large corporation and run XP on a MacBook and I'm finding Outlook takes ages to connect to the exchange server, sometimes not at all, but oddly when I connect into work from home via VPN it connects right away.

I've changed no settings since migrating.

XP SP2, , Macbook Pro, 2GB ram etc. 10.5.1

[byteme]

I have the same problem now with 10.5.1 that I just upgraded to. Did you have any luck finding a solution?

[clayj]

Have you tried setting your VM to use Bridged networking, versus NAT? My Outlook 2007 really had a hard time connecting to my Exchange Server until I switched from NAT to Bridged.

[byteme]

No luck with Bridged either.

This just started after upgrading to 10.5.

Thanks

[NickieO]

Yeah, I switched to Bridged and it works OK now. I can also see the network on LAN which I couldn't before, although the little icon bottom right in the taskbar has a red cross through it telling me I have no connection. Under Parallels it worked on "Shared" (or whatever they called the equivalent) but evidently not with VM.

It's all too funky and complex for me...

[byteme]

Well I took a look at my network settings for the Cisco VPN network adapter and found some strange things. So I changed them and now Outlook connects again. One strange thing was that the IP address was set to 0.0.0.0. I switched that to automatically obtained.

[byteme]

Problems again. Once the connection stops I have to reboot the physical mac to make get another Exchange connection in Outlook. I have the same problem on a Linux box but there I have to shutdown Windows XP, restart VMWare, and then start Windows XP again.

I really would like to know what the problem is.

[vvegas]

I use Outlook 2003 on XP SP2 in a corporate enviroronment and haven't had any problems. But I am running Tiger, not Leopard, so I wonder if your problems are specific to OS 10.5.x.

- I use Bridged networking (and the network connection icon of the virtual machine shows as connected)

- I found that having only one network device connected to the Mac at a time is best. So if using ethernet, disable the wireless, or if connecting to a wireless network, don't connect an ethernet cable to the Mac.

- At home, I connect to our VPN through the Windows virtual machine rather than through the Mac. This seems to work quickly and reliably. I have also connected the to the VPN using the Mac client, but then I would switch the Windows workstation to NAT and not use the Windows VPN client.

[NickieO]

Exactly the same experience as vvegas under Leopard here, although I VPN from the VM and not of the Mac.

[byteme]

I connect via the VPN software in XP and it continues to work fine. It's just Outlook that cannot connect to the Exchange server.

Thanks

[vvegas]

Should you not find a solution here in the forums, my advice would be to work with your network services team to see if they can sniff the traffic from the XP guest PC when it is trying to connect from Outlook to Exchange server. I suspect there may be some DNS resolution issue with the Guest PC. If you have permissions on the machine, you can also try disabling any firewall software that is running and see if things start working.