thanks for the suggestion, I assume you are talking about Office 2002
patches? I will look for any... but i'm reluctant to add patches when
things are working fine other than this.

but not sure why anything would change, i've been running in this
configuration for over 2 years. why all of a sudden?

can you explain exactly what the error means and what is outlook looking
for? i am not using the scheduling features, perhaps i turned it on by
accident. it could be looking for exchange server which it will never find.