Outlook7 stays offline

When I open Outlook7, it says it is offline. If I have another window open
in IE, andif I manually send/receive, then it works. When I try to open a
hotmail email from within Outlook, it won't open because it says it is
offline. I "mark it for download" and manually hit the send/receive button
and I can open the message. Meanwhile, Icon in bottom right hand corners
continually says offline.