Sandy Donald has recently reported on the UKSBSG Yahoo! group that he has seen an issue with Outlook 2007 connecting to the GAL over RPC/HTTP (or Outlook Anywhere if you prefer).

He reports the following in his post:

"I did some more digging and testing.  My conclusions are that after the application of Office 2007 SP2, Outlook cannot reconnect to directories over http.  It can reconnect to mailbox and public folders but not directories. So, GAL is not available and the offline message appears.

I have restored a client to the pre Office SP2 install status using System Restore (having proven the issue on this client by installing SP2) and after the rather lengthy process of Office 2007 having to do a lot of reconfiguring when Outlook is started (after the System Restore) including an apparently necessary reboot, and error 1719 Windows Installer, - but no reboot occurred.  Anyway Outlook 2007 is back to SP1 and, hey presto, Gal is visible and directories are connected over http.  You know, on the Outlook client you do CTRL, right click over the Outlook icon in the notification area and then select Connection status and it's evident from there.

I have now confirmed this on XP Pro and Vista Business - only with Outlook 2007."

If you are seing similar problems then Susan Bradley kindly pointed us at the following blog posts to assist with the uninstall of Office 2007 SP2.

http://blogs.technet.com/odsupport/archive/2009/05/08/how-to-uninstall-office-2007-sp2-using-the-2007-office-sp-uninstall-tool.aspx

SP2 for Office 2007 is the first service pack for Office client that can be uninstalled. We have a great technical reference available on the Office 2007 Resource Kit (ORK) website that covers SP2 uninstall in detail here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd723551.aspx

This blurb from the ORK article above is worth mentioning here before we start the uninstall steps:

"The uninstall tool allows the removal of a service pack release, which is a collection of patches. In this case, the release is 2007 Office system SP2. The uninstall tool removes all patches in a given release.

It does not uninstall per patch or per product. For example, if you have Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer Service Pack 2, and Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Service Pack 2 installed on a computer, the tool uninstalls all these patches at the same time because they are part of the same release. Because of the complexity of shared files and shared Windows Installer packages (MSI files), there is no support currently for uninstalling per-product service packs."

I'm going to walk through the minimal steps required to uninstall Office 2007 SP2 using the 2007 Office SP Uninstall Tool, or oarpman for short.
Oarpman does additional reporting and logging that I will not cover here, but is covered in detail on the ORK site.

1. Download 2007 Office SP Uninstall Tool from this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=b97e6ecf-8da5-455d-b3bb-8ff2223f97c4&displaylang=en

2. Double-click office2007spuninstall.exe. Accept the terms and click Continue.

 3. Make a new folder called oarpman at the root of C and click OK.
 
<http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/odsupport/WindowsLiveWriter/HowtouninstallOffice2007SP2usingOARPMAN_828D/image_8.png>

4. Open up an administrative command prompt.

 * Windows XP/Server 2003 - Click Start > Run. Type "cmd" and press Enter.
 * Vista/Server 2008/Win7 - Click Start > All Programs > Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and click "Run as Administrator"

   <http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/odsupport/WindowsLiveWriter/HowtouninstallOffice2007SP2usingOARPMAN_828D/image_14.png>

5. OARPMAN needs a release name to start the uninstall. To get it, type the following in your command prompt window: c:\oarpman\oarpman.exe /report and press Enter.

<http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/odsupport/WindowsLiveWriter/HowtouninstallOffice2007SP2usingOARPMAN_828D/image_18.png> 

6. To start the uninstall of SP2 type the following in your command prompt window: c:\oarpman\oarpman.exe /remove O12SP2 and press Enter. This process may take some time to complete.
 
<http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/odsupport/WindowsLiveWriter/HowtouninstallOffice2007SP2usingOARPMAN_828D/image_20.png>

That's it. SP2 is uninstalled, and Office 2007 is reverted back to a patch state prior to SP2 being installed.

Hope this helps someone if they are facing the same issue.

Please let me know if you are and we can co-ordinate with Microsoft.

Cheers,

Ian Watkins