I thought the calendar  was read-only in Outlook, at least that's what I've
seen. You make changes to a sharepoint  events calendar and it is reflected
in outlook if you have it linked, you cannot make changes in outlook and
have them reflected in sharepoint. At least that's what I thought.

but as always I am still confused.

I thought it was suppose to work  by a user placing an Event entry in their
outlook calendar, which would then sync that entry to the Vacation Calendar.
But when it starts to sync I get the error as discribed below. Is they're
anything I should be installing on the Client Laptops in order to access
this service?

Task ' ' reported error (0x80072EFF): 'The Windows SharePoint Services
Folder could not be found.

Can anyone help me please as I would like to be able us the Vacation
Calendar to reflect eveyones leave in a single Vacation Calendar.

I suppose it has something to do with the way Outlook/exchange is setup. I
for instance have it setup for pop-3 mail simply because it's easier then
setting up vpn's like win 2000. On the other hand the flexibility with using
a direct exchange mailbox is somewhat lost. I guess outlook 2003 allows you
to setup a vpn-less mailbox but I never did look too deeply into that
because it seems the router I use (a cisco 800 series) did not like it much
when I first attempted it.

Thus, I can only put events (no matter what sharepoint  event it is) on
sharepoint itself and then link it to outlook for syncing  from sharepoint to
outlook. There is no Outlook to sharepoint syncing on my setup but the idea
is intriguing.

The "Open in Outlook" functionality to show Event list items in Outlook is
read-only. See the 2nd paragraph at
www.microsoft.com/.../c4061881x.mspx (an
excerpt from the Resource Kit).

It confirms I think what I was getting to..:

Snip> Linking Events and Contacts in Outlook 2003

In Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, you can view any contacts or events list
from a Windows sharepoint  Services site as a read-only Outlook folder.
Outlook stores the data from the SharePoint list in a Personal Folders .pst
file on the user's hard drive. Because the list information resides in a
local file, these event and contact items are available in Outlook even when
the user is not connected to the network. The user cannot, however, create
new items in the SharePoint lists through Outlook. The user still must
browse to the SharePoint site to create, delete, or modify items.<

I.E. If I have a team calendar  setup for events on Sharepoint, I can't
simply go to whatever workstation I want, open web-outlook or pop3 and place
new events in the linked calendar and have them reflected in Sharepoint. I
need to navigate to sharepoint and change the events on the site itself and
those changes will then be reflected in whatever outlook workstation I am
at.

Did I get all that right? It seemed to me he was trying to modify events in
an Outlook calendar and have them reflected on sharepoint, which cannot be
done. (As far as I know),,.

Thanks for all this info, its GREAT and I think I understand the concept of
the Sharepoint Vacation Calendar.

But it still does not explain why I get the error -

Task ' ' reported error (0x80072EFF): 'The Windows SharePoint Services
Folder could not be found.

When the Local Sharepoint calendar  is trying to check the On-Line Sharepoint
calendar for updates. Where is outlook expecting the Sharepoint Service
Folder to be?

Please remember I access this server remote  as it is hosted in a remote data
centre and we have now access to a Local Private Address scheme as the
server is on the Internet with a Public IP Address.

So, you talk about both Internet and Intranet access if I'm following - was a
switch made at some point, and do you always access it the same way? It might
be that Outlook is trying to access WSS via a name or IP that cannot be resolved
based on an old address.

The server was setup with a Single Static IP. There is now Intranet setup.
e.g. Private IP Address Range, only a Static IP out on the Internet.

I've added a number of combinations for the server into the HOST file, but
still no joy....

True. But you could, in theory, make it writeable by utilising the list
web service. I did a sample where you can add a VBA macro that takes an
event from your personal calendar  and places it into a WSS list. You
just need to utilise the Office Web Services toolkit and take it form
there...

As far as the out of the box sync goes the items that are sync'd
actually have the URL of the corresponding WSS item in them - so that's
why I say in Theory you could write your own code to modify them back on
the team  site.

The issue I have is not one of being able to update the sharepoint  calendar
direct in my outlook, but the problem is it fails to sync. Therefore the
changes reflecting in the Vacation calendar  within sharepoint does not
update in the sharepoint calendar in outlook.

I still get the following error reported by Outlook when it tries to
sync....

Task ' ' reported error (0x80072EFF): 'The Windows SharePoint Services
Folder could not be found.

First thing I'd look at: Is it failing to synchronize only on your
workstation or on all workstations? If all, did anyone move or rename or
modify the event calendar  in Front page?

If you've already checked the obvious like deleting the link to outlook and
trying it again and putting Sharepoint in your trusted sites (especially if
you have attachments in a linked list) and you have run current updates for
all of your office 2003 etc. It should be fine. Are you using pop3 in
outlook? Or a direct exchange mailbox?

Here's what I pulled out of Microsoft on it, says busy network etc..:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=836939

I am having the same problem. I can link my Vacation Calendar (from
sharepoint intranet) to Outlook computer, but cannot sync, it stops @
5% with error that WSS fodler could not be found? Any ideas? Only
two of my pc's are experiencing this problem. Both have latest sp and
so does server W2003Small Business server.

Any ideas?