Originally Posted by
pittpanther
We no longer use a VPN, and have now switched to PPTP connections. Have not had any problems at hotels, yet.
PPTP is a type of VPN, but that is just a semantics thing.
If you are connected via VPN to the home office and Outlook can't connect to the Exchange server the issue is almost always DNS resolution. Your Outlook account is looking for a server named EXCHANGE01 or something and that only works if your computer asks a DNS server in your office for that name. If the laptop asks a DNS server provided by the ISP (which isn't uncommon in the situation you're describing) then the Outlook client won't find the Exchange server and that will prevent you from connecting. The easiest way to fix this is using a static setting in the hosts file on your computer, but that requires some additional knowledge to set up.
There are things that hotels can do to prevent you from connecting to a VPN at all, though you'd know pretty quickly from the VPN client if that were happening and I assume it is not the case here.
Originally Posted by SP0
You can overcome this by selecting an option "Connect to my Exchange mailbox using HTTP."
This setting requires configuration server-side as well as a patch to be installed on older versions of the Outlook client. It is not always possible to use it. That being said, the setting is under Tools | Email Accounts | Change/Modify | More Settings | Connections. At the bottom of that window you might see something about RPC/HTTPs; it is only available in Outlook 2003 and 2007, not Office XP. If you can get that far, put your Outlook Web Access server address in the box. It might work and it might not. If it does, your IT people have set you up for the best connectivity option for Exchange possible anywhere. I used to have it at my job and it was phenomenal. "Normal" Outlook access without a VPN or any other special steps to set things up.