I’ve written in the past about various issues involving Outlook and security, third-party software, add-ins, etc. But there are also less email specific issues that can affect the basic working functionality of Outlook. These basic issues can be addressed with some standard troubleshooting procedures.

If you have installed Outlook with the Corporate or Workgroup option – which supports the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) services -  then here are some areas that can have a negative impact on the operation of Outlook when mis-configured: TCP/IP settings, Domain Naming and Exchange server configurations. Configuration problems can affect such Transport services as: Internet email, Microsoft Exchange Server, Address Book and Personal Folders.

If you want to find out what Outlook option is installed you can click About Microsoft Outlook, on the Help menu and then verify the installation as “Corporate or Workgroup”.

Sometimes you may get an end user who is having problems with their folders in Outlook. When they click on any of their folders such as Sent Items, personal folders or their Inbox, they get the following error message:

“Unable to display the folder. Network problems are preventing connection to the exchange server computer.”

It’s possible that shutting down Outlook and then restarting it might correct the problem. Maybe some process didn’t exit correctly or memory was stepped on that caused this problem. But as an admin you want to step through the process of diagnosing the cause of the problem and then making the appropriate corrections as needed.

As an admin, you always want to ensure that your network connection is working properly. One way to do this is by using the “ping” command. If you are able to issue the “ping” command to a known server using an IP address then you’ll know that the TCP/IP connection is working properly.

You can issue the command by opening an MS DOS prompt window by clicking on the Start menu button in the lower left corner and then pulling right on All Programs and then pulling right on Accessories. Once you have the Accessories open then select on Command Prompt to bring up an MS DOS prompt window. Then type in this command:

ping 209.131.36.158

You should see the following results if you have a successful connection:

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>ping 209.131.36.158

Pinging 209.131.36.158 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 209.131.36.158:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 39ms, Average = 29ms

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>

Now that you’ve established that there’s nothing wrong with your TCP/IP connection you should verify that your domain configuration is working. By this I mean that you should try to ping a server using the “servername.com” reference instead of the IP address.

Well known servers include www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. After the window opens up just type in one of these commands:

ping www.google.com

Or

ping www.yahoo.com

You should get something like the following:

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.19.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 74.125.19.99: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=51

Reply from 74.125.19.99: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=51

Reply from 74.125.19.99: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=51

Reply from 74.125.19.99: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 74.125.19.99:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 25ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 39ms

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>ping www.yahoo.com

Pinging www-real.wa1.b.yahoo.com [209.131.36.158] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=54

Reply from 209.131.36.158: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=54

Ping statistics for 209.131.36.158:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 25ms

C:Documents and SettingsAdministrator>

If you are able to ping successfully then your Domain Name Server (DNS) settings have been set up correctly and are working as expected.

Lastly, if you are working with Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) then that can add an extra layer of complexity to your diagnostic procedures. It’s possible that you might have to include the Exchange server domain in the Search Domains field in the Network System Preferences. And, at the same time, you might also have to remove domain name server entries in the DNS Servers field.

These are just some of the problems you may encounter when setting up your systems and servers for Outlook and Exchange.