Can't open Outlook 2013 - The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

I am running newly installed Office 2013 on Windows 8 Pro on the Surface Pro.  I have several IMAP emails and one Exchange email.  When I first started Outlook 2013, I began adding my IMAP emails and everything was working fine.  Then I went to Mail in Control Panel to add the Exchange account and I got the infamous "The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action."  Furthermore when I tried to open Outlook 2013 again, it gave me the "Cannot start Outlook. Cannot open outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened." message.

I tried outlook.exe /resetnavpane and that did not solve the problem.

I then deleted my profile and started over from scratch.  Every time I try to add my Exchange account, I get the same set of errors whether I start with the Exchange account or try adding it after I have created a profile with my IMAP emails.  Of note, I can still run Outlook just fine with my IMAP emails, but I cannot get my Exchange account to work.  I have tried every solution I can find on the internet to no avail.

I have tried creating new profiles and starting over about 20 times now and nothing works.  I have tried every combination of checking/unchecking the "Cached Exchange mode", "Encrypt data between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange", and even "Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP."  I even checked the registry for a missing AppData registry key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders per one of the Microsoft Support solutions.  Guess what, the AppData key was there.

One more thing (and I certainly hope this is not the root of the problem), I elected to not sign up for a Microsoft email or a 365 account. I have a stand-alone version of Office 2013 and I'd like to keep it that way.

Commentary: I love the new Surface Pro, but it really shouldn't be this difficult to access myMicrosoft Exchange account through Microsoft Outlook inMicrosoft Windows 8 on a Microsoft Surface Pro.  My Gmail works just fine in Outlook...just sayin'.