OL2000/2002 Synchronization Problem

I have OL 2K running on my home desktop PC and on a laptop. It is set up to synchronize via dialup with our Microsoft Exchange Server. I work from the desktop and synch at very frequent intervals. I don't use the laptop that much except for traveling or accessing files on the Exchange Server/network (for some strange reason the desktop can't do this). When I want to use the little machine though, I have to synch it up. The problem: When I start to synchronize the calendar data is usually a bit stale. At the end of the synch I often end up with a few "duplicate" appointments, with a symbol resembling an X indicating some sort of problem. Sometimes I see the differences if I open the appointments and compare them. E.g., a day or so ago I eliminated a "reminder" for an appointment for early this morning. So far so good. The laptop version, which had not been synched for a while, still showed the reminder. Then I synched that machine and ended up with 2 versions of the appointment, one with the reminder and one without it. Because of the reminder symbol that shows up in the calendar view the difference between the two was obvious. But most of the time the difference is not very obvious; I tend to just keep the most recent modification--but this obviously is not very safe! Is there a way to prevent OL from "updating" with data that is actually out-of-date? The object of synching my laptop is to update it with current data from the Exchange Server rather than the other way around.

Any suggestions? Thanks!