No New Mail

Problem: An Outlook/Exchange user reported that she had not recieved any new mail in 3 days.

Solution: This is a frequent complaint with our Outlook users. "No new mail" always means that the user has lost contact with the Exchange server but, it's not always for the same reason. This time the indicator at the bottom right side of the Outlook window showed 'Disconnected'. Sometimes this simply means that the network cable is disconnected, but in today's case it wasn't. The network connectivity was fine; she could get the internet and to her network drives. Further investigation revealed that her Exchange account was set to the wrong server. The Exchange administrator had moved some users to a new server but had not verified that the account information was updated. I shut down the user's Outlook session, opened the Mail dialog in the Control Panel and changed the user's account settings to point to the new Exchange server. When we launched Outlook, viola! New mail (too much new mail.... :o)