Exchange Offline – Vista Business – Outlook 2007

Trying to configure Outlook 2007 on Vista Business to an internal MS exchange 2007 system.
XP clients are working fine.
Vista Business machine returns an error saying the the “connection to MS exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action”
I am new to Vista and outlook 2007 but my reading indicates that I can make outlook online from the file menu.
Problem – I can not get outlook to open to access the file menu options.
Can anyone advise how to make outlook online without first opening outlook itself.

Many Thanks in advance