Outlook has two modes, Offline and online. This is nothing to do with the Internet. Purely whether Outlook is in online mode or offline mode. You can switch to offline mode when Outlook is running but if you are using exchange, you can't then switch back to online mode without restarting Outlook itself. So every time I need to go online I had to restart the program.

That seems rather short-sighted but then this is Microsoft and I don't have a high opinion of their software, usually finding other companies have done it better. However Microsoft have the largest share of the market, so it's there Office software I am currently using at work.

It gets even worse than this though. When I am in offline mode I cannot see any of the folders I have created in Exchange. Now I sort my e-mail into folders. I don't see anything wrong with doing that but because they are on the exchange server I can't access them without going online which I cannot do without restarting Outlook.

Whilst it is quite easy to restart Outlook, I should have to deal with all this extra rubbish just because Microsoft insist that I must be bombarded with e-mails notifications every time they come in or I must never be notified ever in my entire life. It's either or with them. Why can't they be more flexible? It can't be that hard for them can it?

I set up an automatic send and receive to run every 30 minutes. I am not 100% certain if it is working but it probably is. I still need to keep using it for a longer period to be certain. Nothing seems to be ever certain when it's made by Microsoft.

Perhaps they have changed. Although at a demonstration of some non Microsoft software recently, the person demoing wasn't very complimentary about Powerpoint 2013. So may be they haven't.