Outlook and Hotmail

[Gordon]

I have an elderly relative (86) who has a paid hotmail account and uses
Outlook 2003, and for whom I do all the IT support.
Just recently someone else (grrr) has changed her Hotmail account to a Live
Hotmail account. This seems to have had two effects - one, she now has a
second set of Hotmail folders in Outlook which has confused her, as
previously mails were sent and received to and from the default set of
folders, and secondly, she now has terrible trouble with mail sticking in
the Outbox.
I have two questions - as she had a PAID Hotmail account, was it necessary
to convert to a Live Hotmail account to continue using Outlook, given the
imminent demise of Webdav access to Hotmail, and secondly, does she also
need the Outlook Connector installed?

Thanks

 

[N. Miller]

I have an elderly relative (86) who has a paid hotmail account and uses
Outlook 2003, and for whom I do all the IT support.
Just recently someone else (grrr) has changed her Hotmail account to a Live
Hotmail account. This seems to have had two effects - one, she now has a
second set of Hotmail folders in Outlook which has confused her, as
previously mails were sent and received to and from the default set of
folders, and secondly, she now has terrible trouble with mail sticking in
the Outbox.
I have two questions - as she had a PAID Hotmail account, was it necessary
to convert to a Live Hotmail account to continue using Outlook, given the
imminent demise of Webdav access to Hotmail, and secondly, does she also
need the Outlook Connector installed?

TTBOMK, the move from MSN to Windows Live is mandatory. It wasn't a matter
of needing to convert for any reason other than continued use of Hotmail.
Period.

WebDAV access is independent of being MSN, or Windows Live, and it will be
turned off June 30, 2008. When the switch to DeltaSync is made Outlook will
be stranded; with the exception of OL2003, and OL2007, for which Outlook
Connector will be required for DeltaSync access.

 

[VanguardLH]

I have an elderly relative (86) who has a paid hotmail account and uses
Outlook 2003, and for whom I do all the IT support.

I'd hardly call supporting a relative's computer as "IT" support.

Just recently someone else (grrr) has changed her Hotmail account to a Live
Hotmail account.

That would be Microsoft. They started converting the old MSN Hotmail
accounts to Windows Live Hotmail accounts back in November 2007.

This seems to have had two effects - one, she now has a
second set of Hotmail folders in Outlook which has confused her, as
previously mails were sent and received to and from the default set of
folders,

No, they weren't before set to a default set of folders. They were sent
only to the message store for that HTTP account. Every HTTP account
gets its own message store. If you have N HTTP accounts then you will N
trees to show the N message stores. The POP and Exchange accounts get
aggregated into one message store.

and secondly, she now has terrible trouble with mail sticking in
the Outbox.

Did you check if she has the option enabled to automatically send read
receipts? Or does she have it configured to prompt to send read
receipts, and she did so? Configure Outlook to NEVER send read receipts
(i.e., always ignore them).

Can you see the items that are stuck in the Outbox? If so, how big are
they? What is the secret error message during sending e-mails that
hasn't yet been revealed here?

I have two questions - as she had a PAID Hotmail account, was it necessary
to convert to a Live Hotmail account to continue using Outlook, given the
imminent demise of Webdav access to Hotmail, and secondly, does she also
need the Outlook Connector installed?

Microsoft is going to Windows Live Hotmail. WebDAV access will work
until sometime around June. You might try defining a new HTTP account
to see if that works with her newly converted Windows Live Hotmail
account. In any case, since WebDAV is dying, why didn't you install the
Outlook Connector add-on to add Deltasync support so she can use her
paid Hotmail account now and continue to use it past June?

 

[VanguardLH]

I have an elderly relative (86) who has a paid hotmail account and uses
Outlook 2003, and for whom I do all the IT support.
Just recently someone else (grrr) has changed her Hotmail account to a Live
Hotmail account. This seems to have had two effects - one, she now has a
second set of Hotmail folders in Outlook which has confused her, as
previously mails were sent and received to and from the default set of
folders, and secondly, she now has terrible trouble with mail sticking in
the Outbox.
I have two questions - as she had a PAID Hotmail account, was it necessary
to convert to a Live Hotmail account to continue using Outlook, given the
imminent demise of Webdav access to Hotmail, and secondly, does she also
need the Outlook Connector installed?

Thanks

Oh, another thing. If she does have a paid Windows Live Hotmail *PLUS*
account then POP3 was re-added back in Nov 2007. I don't have a Plus
account so I don't know the server specifics.

 

[Gordon]

I'd hardly call supporting a relative's computer as "IT" support.

Well rooty toot. I do all the support that a corporate helpdesk does. Just
because it's an elderly relative doesn't mean that it is NOT "IT Support"

That would be Microsoft. They started converting the old MSN Hotmail
accounts to Windows Live Hotmail accounts back in November 2007.

Wrong. You have to manually convert to Live Hotmail - MS is NOT doing it
automatically. AFAIK....

No, they weren't before set to a default set of folders. They were sent
only to the message store for that HTTP account. Every HTTP account
gets its own message store. If you have N HTTP accounts then you will N
trees to show the N message stores. The POP and Exchange accounts get
aggregated into one message store.

And PAID Hotmail accounts had POP access, not http. So my original statement
is correct.

Did you check if she has the option enabled to automatically send read
receipts? Or does she have it configured to prompt to send read
receipts, and she did so? Configure Outlook to NEVER send read receipts
(i.e., always ignore them).

AFAIK nothing has changed except this conversion to Live Hotmail.

Can you see the items that are stuck in the Outbox? If so, how big are
they? What is the secret error message during sending e-mails that
hasn't yet been revealed here?

They are just small plain-text, one or two line messages. No error message -
they just sit in Outbox. Never happened before this third person converted
the account...

Microsoft is going to Windows Live Hotmail. WebDAV access will work
until sometime around June. You might try defining a new HTTP account
to see if that works with her newly converted Windows Live Hotmail
account. In any case, since WebDAV is dying, why didn't you install the
Outlook Connector add-on to add Deltasync support so she can use her
paid Hotmail account now and continue to use it past June?

I didn't install the connector because a) there was no problem until this
happened and b) I wasn't sure whether all this change affected PAID Hotmail
accounts, which is why I asked the question.
Now if you can't provide any suitable assistance or links to assistance,
please go forth and multiply.

 

[Gordon]

Oh, another thing. If she does have a paid Windows Live Hotmail *PLUS*
account then POP3 was re-added back in Nov 2007.

I think she must do because she's had pop access ever since it was set up,
in 2007.

 

[VanguardLH]

...


Wrong. You have to manually convert to Live Hotmail - MS is NOT doing it
automatically. AFAIK....

I had 2 MSN Hotmail accounts get "automatically" converted for me. That
was many months ago so I don't remember when the conversion was forced.
I've heard a similar complaints from other users. Googling shows these
complaints started showing up around last November.

And PAID Hotmail accounts had POP access, not http. So my original statement
is correct.

POP3 access was discontinued back in 2002 except for legacy accounts.
New paid accounts got WebDAV access. Hotmail's history:

- 1996 July: Hotmail becomes available. Provides a webmail interface to
e-mail service.
- 1997 December: Microsoft buys Hotmail to include in their MSN
services.
- 1999 August: Anyone can log into any Hotmail account using the
password "eh"
(http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1999/08/21503).
- 1999 December: Microsoft forgets to pay their passport.com domain
renewal fee. Hotmail is unavailable on Christmas Eve. A Linux
consultant pays the fee and Hotmail comes back up.
- 2000 February: For MSN Hotmail, POP3 access is discontinued and
switches to WebDAV access. MSN "legacy" accounts created before that
date continue
to get POP3 access. MSN Hotmail accounts created after that date only
get WebDAV access which restricts them to using Microsoft's Outlook or
Outlook Express e-mail clients (later some plug-ins or proxies become
available to allow non-Microsoft e-mail clients to access Hotmail but
they get killed in 2004 November except for paid accounts when WebDAV
access gets pulled from free accounts).
- 2002 July: For free Hotmail accounts, POP3 access is discontinued and
switches to WebDAV access. Hotmail PLUS (paying customers) gets
POP3/SMTP mail host access.
- 2003 (autumn): Microsoft forgets to pay their hotmail.co.uk domain
renewal fee. Another good Samaritan pays the fee. No downtime.
- 2004 November: Microsoft changes policy to disable WebDAV access for
*new* free Hotmail accounts created after that date. Old (and still
active) free accounts created before that policy change date (i.e.,
grandfathered accounts) continue to get WebDAV access. After this date,
Microsoft charges for WebDAV access. New plug-ins and proxies start
showing up to compensate. Old plug-ins and proxies still work with
non-Microsoft e-mail clients for *paid* Hotmail accounts where WebDAV
access remains.
- 2005 November: Microsoft officially announces Windows Live Mail
(codename Kahuna), later rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail. Goes
through some beta testing.
- 2006 November: Windows Live Hotmail first released to existing and new
Netherlands users as a pilot market.
- 2007 May: Microsoft releases Windows Live Hotmail to worldwide market.
Users can elect to stay with the MSN Hotmail or try the new Windows Live
Hotmail (classic or full) interface. They are given an option (which
eventually disappears) to switch back to MSN Hotmail.
- 2007 June: Microsoft introduces DeltaSync, its replacement for WebDAV.
- 2007 September: Users start reporting that Microsoft begins
involuntarily *forcing* MSN Hotmail users to migrate to the Windows Live
Hotmail interface. One day they were using MSN Hotmail, the next they
were forced to Windows Live Hotmail without any action on their part,
and they cannot switch back.
- 2007 September: POP3 access returns only for Windows Live Hotmail Plus
(paid) accounts but not for MSN Hotmail Premium (paid) accounts.
Requires SSL connects and SMTP authentication (pop3.live.com port 995,
smtp.live.com port 25 with SMTP authentication, SSL on both).
- 2008 June: Microsoft disables WebDAV on all accounts and forces use of
DeltaSync protocol. For free Windows Live Hotmail accounts, users will
need to use Outlook 2003 or 2007 with the Outlook Connector plug-in
(post-1.8 version) or the Windows Live Mail client. For PAID Windows
Live Hotmail accounts, users can use any POP3/SMTP e-mail client. The
webmail interface remains available for free and paid accounts as it has
been ever since Hotmail existed.

So, does Grandma have her Hotmail account defined as a POP account in
Outlook? Or is it defined as an HTTP account?

AFAIK nothing has changed except this conversion to Live Hotmail.

Users will conveniently forget changes they make when confronted.
Happens all the time. That read receipts used to go through okay
doesn't mean they do now. Otherwise, everyone sending read receipts
would have long stop sending them because it would've been a solid and
reproducible problem (that Microsoft would've actually addressed).

They are just small plain-text, one or two line messages. No error message -
they just sit in Outbox. Never happened before this third person converted
the account...

And the secret error message when trying to send them is ...? Don't
describe the error message. Don't paraphrase the error message. Don't
summarize or truncate the error message. Show the entire error message
(copy-n-paste or transcribe verbatim although you might want to munge
out the username).

I didn't install the connector because a) there was no problem until this
happened and b) I wasn't sure whether all this change affected PAID Hotmail
accounts, which is why I asked the question.

Unless she has a legacy account that uses POP, she is using WebDAV with
an HTTP account defined in Outlook. Well, you know WebDAV is dying. So
if she has an HTTP account for Hotmail, and to prevent the future
disruption of service, install the Outlook Connector add-on. You will
have to define a new account under the control of that add-on.

 

[VanguardLH]

I think she must do because she's had pop access ever since it was set up,
in 2007.

Then knowing the error message when the items won't send would help in
diagnosing the problem.

Also try disabling any e-mail scanning by an anti-virus program. The
interrogation of the e-mail traffic by the AV proxy can cause enough
delay to cause timeouts. Some AV programs work as a proxy and halt the
e-mail traffic to interrogate it and then send it on if okay. Some
actually behave like a local SMTP server (McAfee is like this) where it
accepts the entire message, the e-mail client thinks it sent okay, but
then McAfee will have an error connecting to the SMTP server and report
a failure to send the message. Just disabling the AV proxy may not
help. If the proxy becomes unresponsive, no e-mail is getting through.
Disabling the e-mail scanning only eliminates interrogating the e-mail
traffic but not that it passes through their proxy, and if their proxy
is dead then nothing gets through it. Sometimes a reboot is required to
get a fresh copy of their proxy running correctly. Sometimes that
doesn't work and you have to reinstall their AV program. If disabling
e-mail scanning works then you're done. If not, try disabling and
rebooting. If that doesn't work, uninstall and reinstall the AV program
but select a custom install that excludes the e-mail scanning module.

 

[Gordon]

Then knowing the error message when the items won't send would help in
diagnosing the problem.

I'm going in by remote assistance soon so I'll find out.

Also try disabling any e-mail scanning by an anti-virus program.

Uses free AVG, which hasn't had any settings changed since I installed
it....

 

[VanguardLH]

I'm going in by remote assistance soon so I'll find out.


Uses free AVG, which hasn't had any settings changed since I installed
it....

Users reports all the time (and it has happened to me for every AV
program that I've tried) that it was working and then suddenly stopped
working until they disabled e-mail scanning. There may have been an
automatic update by the AV program that now causes a problem. There may
be more noise or loss in your network connection or the route between
you and the mail host that requires resending those lost packets and
having to resend them equates to a delay that the e-mail client just
barely tolerated with the delay in delivery by the AV program. A mail
host could get busy and add further delay in delivery e-mail traffic and
with the AV's delay causes your e-mail client to timeout. Things
change.

E-mail scanning is superfluous to find a pest in your messages. The
same scanner used to interrogate your e-mail traffic is the same scanner
used to check the files on your hard disk. If you attempt to decode an
attachment in an e-mail to save it to disk (so you can actually run it)
then the on-access scanner detects the pest. E-mail scanning only moves
forward (makes early) of when the pest is detected, not that it will or
will not be detected.