Setting up MSN mail accounts

B

BudV

Running OL2007 under Vista Home Premium SP2.

I'm switching from four accounts with ATT (POP3) to four accounts with MSN
(MAPI). I will set the ATT accounts to forward to the MSN accounts after
the switchover.

I used Outlook Connector to set up the MSN accounts, and I was under the
impression that it would set up OL (it did) and would also do what's
necessary at MSN to set them up there (I'm not sure about that).

Did I skip any steps, or should I be ready to go?
 
N

N. Miller

Running OL2007 under Vista Home Premium SP2.

I'm switching from four accounts with ATT (POP3) to four accounts with MSN
(MAPI). I will set the ATT accounts to forward to the MSN accounts after
the switchover.

I used Outlook Connector to set up the MSN accounts, and I was under the
impression that it would set up OL (it did) and would also do what's
necessary at MSN to set them up there (I'm not sure about that).

Did I skip any steps, or should I be ready to go?

Not MAPI (which is an application to e-mail client protocol), nor even IMAP
(which is a "read the email on the server" protocol), but HTTPMail (which is
similar to IMAP).

Outlook Connector should set up any MSN (Windows Live) Hotmail type account
as HTTPMail in Outlook 2007. I don't know what the steps are, but it sounds
like you are good to go. Did you try it out?
 
B

Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]

Running OL2007 under Vista Home Premium SP2.

I'm switching from four accounts with ATT (POP3) to four accounts with MSN
(MAPI). I will set the ATT accounts to forward to the MSN accounts after
the switchover.

I used Outlook Connector to set up the MSN accounts, and I was under the
impression that it would set up OL (it did) and would also do what's
necessary at MSN to set them up there (I'm not sure about that).

Did I skip any steps, or should I be ready to go?

If the MSN mailboxes have been created for you and the MSN accounts and their
folder sets appear in Outlook, that should be all you need.
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

V

VanguardLH

Diane said:
FWIW, the Connector creates MAPI accounts. It says so right in Outlook. :)
Calling them by any other name will only lead to confusion.

MAPI = Messaging API (*application* programming interface)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAPI

It has to do with the MAPI that is installed in Windows as a library which
contains functions that *clients* can use to manipulate messages stores for
e-mail storage. It is NOT a *protocol* for communicating with an e-mail
server! Please don't pretend you know what a term means when you don't.

Outlook has not and does not natively support HTTP/Deltasync protocol.
Microsoft dropped HTTP/DAV access back in September 2009 and switched to
their newer PROTOCOL of HTTP/Deltasync. That meant any client that relied
on HTTP/DAV (Outlook, Outlook Express) would no longer work to provide
IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account. Since Outlook Express is a dead
product since 2006, no changes will be forthcoming to get it to support
HTTP/Deltasync. Outlook doesn't support Deltasync, so you have to install
the Outlook Connector add-on (which only works on OL2003 and up) to add the
Deltasync support to Outlook.

In Outlook, you have the following PROTOCOLS that can be used to communicate
to your e-mail server:
- POP (Post Office Protocol); for receiving e-mails.
- IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol); for receiving e-mails.
- HTTP/DAV (DAV = web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, no longer
supported by Hotmail); for receiving e-mails.
- HTTP/Deltasync (replaces HTTP/DAV as of Sept 2009 for Hotmail); for
receiving e-mails.
- SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol); for sending e-mails.
- Exchange (Microsoft's proprietary server & protocol); for receiving and
sending e-mails.

There is no such thing as a MAPI *protocol*. You don't use MAPI for your
client to communicate to the e-mail server. See the Wiki article above.
 
V

VanguardLH

BudV said:
Running OL2007 under Vista Home Premium SP2.

I'm switching from four accounts with ATT (POP3) to four accounts with MSN
(MAPI). I will set the ATT accounts to forward to the MSN accounts after
the switchover.

That may last for maybe a month. SMTP access usually gets cut off
immediately when you terminate your subscription with an e-mail service
provider. POP/IMAP access may last for another month or whenever is their
normal billing cycle. The forwarding will only last for awhile unless you
are keeping those ATT accounts alive.

If they are paid ATT accounts and you are no longer paying for them, expect
them to go completely dead in about a month. If you no longer have a
contract with them, you don't get any service from them. If you terminated
your account, you probably already cannot send through them. Soon you won't
be able to receive through them, either.

If it is a freebie account, those often become disabled after a period of
inactivity (perhaps 2 months) and are then eligible for deletion when they
have been inactive for awhile (like after 4 to 6 months). Activity is
determined by having to login into the account to show you've been there.
You do that when you use a local e-mail client that has to log into your
account to check, retrieve, and send e-mails. Forwarding (pushing) from an
account never has you logging into that account, so your freebie account
will disappear after awhile and you might not be able to reactivate it. If
your new account permits polling (yanking) of your old accounts, use that.
Yanking e-mails requires logging into those old accounts and that will keep
them from going idle (inactive). Pushing only works if it isn't a freebie
account; i.e., your money is keeping the account active.

Hotmail does let you poll other POP accounts. That would be a smarter
choice if you intend to keep freebie accounts activated because the poll
requires logging into those other accounts. If you only want to forward
e-mails from the old accounts until they eventually go dead, have them
forward to your Hotmail account. The forwarding will die when they get
around to killing all portions of your account for which you longer
subscribe from them.
I used Outlook Connector to set up the MSN accounts, and I was under the
impression that it would set up OL (it did) and would also do what's
necessary at MSN to set them up there (I'm not sure about that).

Did I skip any steps, or should I be ready to go?

Can you successfully poll your new MSN accounts using the HTTP/Deltasync
access that the Outlook Connector afforded to Outlook? Does it work?

If you search this newsgroup on users posting about problems regarding the
Outlook Connector, you can come to your own conclusion as to whether it is
reliable enough for your use. Personally I've found it too flaky; however,
the Hotmail service isn't super-reliable, either. But you decided to go
with Hotmail where you can choose to use either POP or HTTP/Deltasync to
access your mailbox (POP only gives you access to the Inbox folder seen in
the webmail client whereas Deltasync gives you IMAP-like access to all the
folders).
 
B

BudV

Thank you, but I'm embarrassed that you went to so much work on my behalf.
I should have mentioned that ATT and I are splitting on March 31, and I only
intended to do the forwarding until then, to pick up some of the stragglers
that ignored or didn't receive notification of the address change.

I've been ghost-writing all these posts for my daughter, Holly, who owns the
system being discussed. (I'm her IT guru). My personal experience with
Outlook Connector (OC) stems from my switch to Quest, who bundled my DSL
service with msn.com and I just followed their lead blindly. I didn't even
realize that I was switching from a paid service to a freebie. I used OC
(under XP and OL2003) only to set up my single mail account, and appreciated
the convenience. That's it.

ATT is stopping their DSL service for Holly, as of 3/31/10. She's bundling
some Quest services, and we're going with msn.com, if only to be consistent
with me. She has four mail accounts, so OC sounded even more appealing to
me. Her needs are simple and she likes OL, and just needs a nice short
domain name for her email and free is good. Actually, I'm not sure if I'm
limited in my choice by the quest bundling -- I don't know why I would be.
The tech is coming in tomorrow to make the switch, and I'll check with him.
With my comfort with OL, I should still be able to use Quest's DSL to access
ATT mail until the end of the month. I welcome any domain recommendations
that keeps things simple.

--------------HAVING SAID ALL THAT ---------------
With the new mail accounts in place, I can't get past the sign-ins. They
keep rejecting the name and/or password until they shoot me down and tell me
to try again later. You KNOW I typed them in right! I haven't tried the
the HTTP/Deltasync thingy yet.
 
V

VanguardLH

BudV said:
With the new mail accounts in place, I can't get past the sign-ins. They
keep rejecting the name and/or password until they shoot me down and tell me
to try again later. You KNOW I typed them in right! I haven't tried the
the HTTP/Deltasync thingy yet.

The Outlook Connector *is* the HTTP/Deltasync "thingy". No version of
Outlook has native support for Deltasync and why you need to install an
add-on since Microsoft dropped DAV (which Outlook does support) and went to
Deltasync.

It's been awhile since I trialed the add-on but, as I recall, you had to
define an account within Outlook where the add-on was in control. Defining
a normal HTTP account within Outlook results in trying to use DAV and
Hotmail doesn't support that anymore. You never mentioned what is the EXACT
error message that you get when you "can't get past the sign-ins".

Try following the instruction as listed here:

http://email.about.com/od/outlooktips/qt/Access_Live_Hotmail_in_Outlook.htm

If you do it right by following their instructions, you should see a dialog
presented by the add-on on defining an account under its control, like:

http://email.about.com/library/ec/pi/blpi_microsoft_office_outlook_connector.htm

You are basically defining the account within the scope of the add-on, not
within Outlook, because only that add-on knows how to use the Deltasync
protocol. Also, when entering your username, you enter the same one that
you use on Hotmail's webmail login page: your Hotmail e-mail address. That
isn't just your user ID but also the domain (@hotmail.com, @live.com). So
your username (in Outlook or the webmail client) is your full Hotmail e-mail
address.
 
B

BudV

I'm going to terminate this thread for now. You've given me a lot of
information to study, so my work is cut out for me.

The Qwest tech just finishing setting me up with their DSL, and made some
spelling mistakes in the process. Tech Support helped me straighten things
out and told me that, in my case, Outlook Connector wouldn't work until they
made the fixes (2-3 days), after which I'll create the mail accounts. In
the meantime, my ATT accounts are alive and working, so I'm going to take a
vacation, and resume the battle next week.

Thanks for all your help.
 

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