Outlook 2010 fails to connect to Exchange 2013

exchangeexchange-2013ip

I have an Exchange Server 2013 and I am trying to connect using Outlook 2010. Both are running on the same server. The Outlook installation is just for testing mailboxes.

Outlook first refused to connect because the network adapter didn't have a default gateway and apparently Outlook requires a default gateway to connect to 127.0.0.1.

Now the network adapter has a default gateway and Outlook continues to pretend that it cannot find the Exchange server.

The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be
online or connected to complete this action.

This happens regardless of whether I use the Exchange server's name ("exchange") or its (fixed) IP address or "localhost" or 127.0.0.1.

What am I doing wrong?

Update:

After that error message, this small window appears with a slightly different error message.

enter image description here

For some reason Outlook cannot "resolve" the name 127.0.0.1. The same message appears when I try any other name or IP address that points to this same local server including localhost and the server's name and the server's IP address in 192.168.0.0/24.

Best Answer

Found it! It was so easy...

This site had the answer.

http://www.msoutlook.info/question/531

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Exchange Provider 
Value name: DS Server 
Value type: REG_SZ 
Value: FQDN of the GC server

Apparently the global catalog server (I have only one domain controller for the root domain and it is running as it is also the DNS) was missing.

Once I added its name to the "DS Server" value, the connection works!

But why Outlook needs the global catalog server to resolve a DNS name when DNS is working I don't know.

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