why is my Out of office assistant not working?

[Greg Mc]

In Outlook 2003 SP2, I click on Tools, Out of Office Assistant, and nothing
happens. The first time this happened, I was able to access it, but it would
not accept my OoO message. Now, the OoOA dialog box won't show.

 

[Vanguard]

In Outlook 2003 SP2, I click on Tools, Out of Office Assistant, and
nothing
happens. The first time this happened, I was able to access it, but
it would
not accept my OoO message. Now, the OoOA dialog box won't show.

Are you using Exchange as your mail server? That function only works
when using Exchange.

 

[Greg Mc]

We are using Exchange as our mail server. We have about 400 people using
Outlook on our Exchange server. The OoOA works for 99% of them. Once in a
great while, we get one of these. What gives?

 

[Vanguard]

We are using Exchange as our mail server. We have about 400 people
using
Outlook on our Exchange server. The OoOA works for 99% of them. Once
in a
great while, we get one of these. What gives?

Sounds like an issue to ask in an Exchange group. There is, for
example, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/248709/en-us but that is a
server-side fix. Not sure this is a problem with the client (Outlook)
although there are articles, like
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823472/en-us, which has you performing a
client-side fix. However, you could try defining another mail profile
even if only to test if OOA works under that one. You might also try
disabling Exchange caching in OL2003. Also, check Task Manager's
Process tab to make sure there is only one instance of outlook.exe
loaded into memory.

Do the problematic hosts have any add-ons or plug-ins installed (other
than those for Exchange)? If the Exchange Extensions add-on were not
installed (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/238280/en-us) then you
wouldn't see the OoOA menu item, but you mention using it so this add-on
should be installed. Do these hosts have more than one version of
Office or Outlook concurrently installed?

Have you tried running the Repair (under the Help menu)? Also, open the
Help -> About menu and click Disabled Items to look for disabled add-ons
(you'll only see the error prompt window the first time the add-on
errors when it got disabled).