Outlook 2007 error accessing client GAL? Exchange 2003 SP2

The server names are resolving and the only DNS server for the client is the PDC.

What are you entering for user name?  Try entering just the first name, or their login name as opposed to their full name.

Is this a new issue?  Is it only Outlook 2007 having the problem?

The Exchange installation is new to the organization, no Outlook clients have been successfully configured.

Tried matching the full name as supplied, as well as first name, last name, first initial, etc.

At this stage, I am leaning towards this being a problem with the GAL

In my travels, I came across this, which can at least get you started on troubleshooting (and includes GAL troubleshooting as well)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297801

I will let you know if I turn anything else up, until then, let me know how you get on with that page

Kieran

Kieran: I ran through that process already. From the computer I am trying to setup Outlook on, I ldp.exe in using that user's credentials. All attributes are present, and I can see the GAL contents in ldp.exe, which contains the account I am trying to add. So it seems that there are no LDAP issues in obtaining the list.

I have the morning to work on this, anyone have some suggestions?

Have you rebooted the server?  I have seen issues on new installs where the System Attendant wants a reboot before handling client connections - it produces the same results as you have now.

I have restarted the Exchange server a couple times to make sure yes.

I have not restarted the DC servers, it would be hard to schedule that in but I could try overnight.

You shouldn't need to restart the DCs - I suppose it can;t hurt, but I doubt it will help.

Yeah, I'm afraid it won't work either but I'll schedule it tonight anyways.

Any other thoughts on troubleshooting this?

Have you tried this with outlook 2003?  There is an Outlook 2003 disk that comes with Exchange 2003, you could try that.

That would at least prove that it is a version problem and not a server or connection problem - other than that we have covered the big ones.

I installed Outlook 2003 and it can successfully resolve and mount the mailbox.

So, how do I fix Outlook 2007? I'm not sure what is breaking it, but it's consistent among any machine I install to and remains if I update Outlook.

Excellent, I was hoping that would work.

OK, so clearly we have a problem with outlook 2007.

This would be unlikely, but hey, so is the problem you have
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927481

I am pinging a few outlook folks to see if they have heard of this, it is pretty clearly going to be an outlook 2007 configuration option...

I do not have those registry keys mentioned in the article, no.

Much appreciated, I'm not having much luck finding this either. Downgrading Office is unfortunately not an option.

I have pinged the Exchange team as well, hopefully someone can see what I am missing :/

so the system attendant service is running on the e2k3 server?
only outlook 2007 is affected, outlook 2003 for the same user account works fine?
when manually configuring the profile in the ol2k7 settings, try putting a dc/gc in the space where you would normally put the exchange server name, then hit check name, does that work?

kris.

SA is running, any account works in 2003, none work in 2007.

I attempted the DC/GC server names instead of Exchange when I first encountered the issue, same results.

not sure what the problem is here. very weird that only ol2k7 would get picked on. might be time to bite the bullet and open a support call.

kris.

OI!  No panhandling allowed :)

There are no exchangeAB SPN's on the Exchange server.

But there are also none on the GC!

So I'll try adding them and see how that goes, hope that's the problem!

It worked!

Knew it was something AD, man I would have never found that. Forest/Domainprep weren't taking care of it and everything in Configuration and AD permissions looked fine.

Thanks muchly Kieran.

Thanks for finding that answer and saving us the $350. ;)