When you're not connected, can you open Outlook manually? If not, then maybe you need to change your Outlook configuration so you can work offline.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003
http://www.turtleflock.com/olconfig/index.htm
and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
http://www.outlookcode.com/jumpstart.aspx

"Nigel RS" wrote in message news
I have a laptop PC that connects to a microsoft exchange server via a VPN.
When connected I can attach files from the laptop pc to an email using VBA in
Excel. All works OK.
If I operate the PC without VPN conection my file attachment program fails
with unable to access datastore error.

Is this an outlook error as it cannot create an email item ?

Cheers
Nigel RS