Outlook out of office assistant

[#1]

I am trying to set up out of office while I am on holiday, however, I am unable to find this in the tools menu.  I have looked at Microsoft support pages and they say that I need an exchange server email account to make out of office work.  I have no idea what this means - can anyone help?

[#2]

Basically out of office only works if you tell the server providing the emails.
With normal pop3 email Outlook doesn't know if you have received anything until you download it.

[#3]

It means you can't do it.
This is an option for use generally in the corporate environment where your email is stored on a server running Microsoft Exchange software usually run by the company internally.
Some service providers do offer email accounts hosted on Exchange Server as a premium email service.

[#4]

I've never tried it myself, but why not set a message rule in Outlook to reply to e-mails where you are on the To: list. You can restrict sending e-mails to those people in your address book, so that you don't reply to spammers.

[#5]

That only works if you leave the computer on and Outlook running - not a good idea if you are going on holiday 

[#6]

True, but SolidSilver was asking how to set-up MS Outlook, so I assumed he was going to leave his PC on all the time.
Most webhosts will offer the option of a server-based out-of-office reply, but I don't know whether PlusNet offers this option. I've never tried a server-based out-of-office reply, because it won't be linked into my address book, so would reply to spammers.

[#7]

PlusNet don't have server side out of office on their email accounts.

[#8]

A work round that you could look at is to set up a google mail account. You can then set up google mail to pick up your plus net pop email and set up an auto response email in google mail.
Bit of a hassle but would work.

[#9]

Good idea. I've found having a Gmail account very useful for things like this.

[#10]

Its not a good idea to tell everyone you are going away criminals will find it very helpful so they can come to your house and rob you. As a Home Watch coordinator of 15 years we advise people not to do this.