At some time or another every administrator will hear the complaint from an end user that they can’t connect to the mail server. If the mail server is Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and the user’s profile is for a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 mailbox then the following error messages may be produced:

“Your Exchange Server administrator has blocked the version
of Outlook that you are using. Contact your administrator
for assistance.”

Or

“Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook
window.The set of folders cannot be opened. Microsoft
Exchange is not available. Either there are network
problems or the Exchange server is down for maintenance.”

These error messages can also be produced when an earlier Outlook client is attempting to connect to Exchange 2007 Server. Most likely, when Exchange Server 2007 was installed the following question may have been answered with “No”:

"Do you have any client computers running Outlook 2003 and
earlier or Entourage in your organization?"

Answering this question with “No” eliminated the creation of the Public Folder store and the connection from this Public Folder store to the mailbox store. The workaround to this problematic condition is performed with the following steps:

1. A new public folder store needs to be created.
2. The new public folder store should be connected to the existing mailbox store that is used to host users’ mailboxes.
3. Use the “Configure Offline Address Book (OAB) Distribution for Outlook 2003 and earlier clients” wizard, in Exchange 2007 Console, to enable the Offline Address Book (OAB) Distribution for Outlook 2003 and earlier clients.

Note that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store will need to be restarted before a connection is made to the Exchange Server.

If the above steps do not resolve the issue then the error messages might be caused if MAPI is disabled for the user’s mailbox. An administrator can find out if MAPI is enabled for the mailbox by performing the following steps:

1. Click Start, then All Programs.
2. Select Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and click on Exchange Management Shell.
3. Type the following command: Get-CasMailbox MailboxName | FL mapienabled
4. Press Enter.

If the command returns False then the mailbox has MAPI disabled. To enable MAPI for the user’s mailbox an administrator can perform either of the following methods:

Method 1 – Enable MAPI for the user’s mailbox

1. Click Start and select All Programs
2. Click Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and then select Exchange Management Shell.
3. Type the following command: Set-CasMailbox MailboxName -mapienabled:$true
4. Press ENTER.

Method 2 – Connect to Exchange 2007 by performing any of the following procedures:

1. Create an email account in Outlook. Specify the email account to use the Post Office Protocol (POP 3) server type.
2. Create an email account in Outlook. Specify the email account to use the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) server type.
3. Connect using the Outlook Web Access (OWA) Web client.

If the above steps do not resolve the problem then the error messages might be caused if the Exchange connection requires encryption. An administrator can determine if Exchange Server requires encryption by performing the following steps:

1. Click Start and select All Programs.
2. Select Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and then click Exchange Management Shell.
3. Type the command: Get-MailboxServer ServerName | FL MAPIEncryptionRequired
4. Press ENTER.

If a value of “True” is returned then an administrator will need to set the profile for encryption. An administrator can do so by performing the following steps:

1. Click Start and select Run
2. Type “control” to bring up the Control Panel and then click OK.
3. Double-click Mail and then click on Show Profiles.
4. Select the user’s profile and then click the Properties button.
5. Click E-mail Accounts, select the “View or Change Existing E-mail Accounts” radio button and then click Next.
6. Select the Exchange account and click Change.
7. Click More Settings and then again on the Security tab.
8. Select the check box for “Encrypt data between Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server” and click OK.
9. Click Next, Finish and then click Close.

If this does not resolve the connections problems then other conditions may be causing the problems such as the mailbox requiring Cached Exchange Mode or the mailbox requiring RPC/HTTP mode enabled. It is also possible that Exchange 2007 is specifically blocking your version of Outlook. Further analysis will need to be performed to determine which, if any, of those conditions are the cause of the connection issues.

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