I ran across an interesting issue few days ago, while setting up a new email account.
My outlook client 2010 was not in the same Active Directory Domain that my Exchange Server 2013 due to a migration process.
Outlook : Domain1.local
Exchange : Domain2.local
Autodiscover was not available, So I forced the closest Global Catalog Server of Domain2.local on the workstation.
Locate this key in your registry :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Exchange Provider\
and then add the following registry value :
Value name: DS Server
Value type: REG_SZ
Value: FQDN of the GC server
Now you can complete your account creation.
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Microsoft KB : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319206