Making Outlook work in Win 2000 offline

You have to create online folders and set them up to synchronize.

Right now I am at home and I am not in front of a machine that has Outlook setup for an exchange server so I can't give you the exact steps. I will follow-up with the exact steps later.

Assuming that you already have Outlook installed and set up for online use of the mailbox in question:

Outlook 97/2000: When you're connected to the network, open outlook and choose Tools | Services. Highlight Microsoft Exchange Server and clickproperties, then choose the Advanced tab. In Outlook 2002, Tools | Email Accounts, View or Change Existing Accounts, highlight Microsoft Exchange Server and click Change, click More Settings, and choose the Advanced tab.

If you see a box saying "enable offline folders", check it. If not, click the Offline Folder Settings button. Choose a location and name for your folders (on the local HD).

Click OK all the way back to Outlook. Then you can use Tools | Synchronize to synch up all of Outlook's default folders (calendar, contacts, deleted items, inbox, journal, notes, outbox, sent items and tasks). Any other folders or subfolders you've created (esp. PocketMirror if you use Palm and want it available offline) need to be set to sync. For single folders (or all folders in Outlook 97), right click the folder and choose properties, go to the Synchronization tab, and check When online or offline, then hit OK. In 2002, Tools | Options | Mail Setup | Send and Receive | highlight All Accounts and hit Edit. There you can check and uncheck any folders you want or don't want to sync. Outlook 2000 has a similar checkbox style off the Tools | Options menu, but I'm not sure of the exact path to it.

There are many more options relating to how it connects when offline, let me know if you want more info.