William said:
I used Outlook 2003 a couple hours ago. I'm now marker forbidden @ the
server. I checked my account, it's active. I checked my mail @ MSN.com, and
can manipulate it there. I came back to Outlook 2003, and still no connect.
To my knowledge I changed nothing.
As an MSN Hotmail user, you should have received a notification awhile
ago telling you of the removal for DAV access to Hotmail.
Cutoff for DAV access to Hotmail ends on September 1, 2009. Microsoft
is switching to Deltasync as their HTTP communications protocol to their
webmail service. E-mail clients that support only DAV for HTTP access
will no longer be able to use it to access Hotmail. Your choices after
the cutoff are:
- Use a POP e-mail client to access your Hotmail account.
- Use a Deltasync-enable client to see all the folders in your webmail
account.
- Use the webmail client that has always been there even before
Microsoft bought Hotmail.
POP has no concept of folders. It only understands a mailbox where ALL
your e-mails reside. Because POP doesn't use folders, there are no
commands within the Post Office Protocol to navigate or select folders.
It only has access to your mailbox. The mailbox that POP can access is
the Inbox folder you see when using the webmail client to your account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/pop_basics.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/how_pop_works.htm
Hotmail has never had and still doesn't have IMAP access. IMAP lets you
access other folders in your e-mail account (or, more accurately, those
folders to which you have subscribed). Microsoft has hinted that they
may make IMAP access possible in the future but no Hotmail user is going
to pend using their account until if and whenever IMAP access shows up.
The only way to have local access to the non-Inbox folders in your
Hotmail account is to use Deltasync (DAV support dies on Sept 1). This
protocol makes available all your folders that you defined using either
the Deltasync-enabled e-mail client (which then replicates that local
folder on the server) or syncs to those folders you created using the
webmail client. If you want IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account,
you'll need to use either the webmail client or a local e-mail client
that supports Deltasync, which are:
- Windows Live Mail (replaces Outlook Express and Vista's Windows Mail).
- Outlook 2003/2007 *plus* the Outlook Connector add-on (the add-on adds
Deltasync support since no version of Outlook natively supports
Deltasync). The add-on doesn't work with prior versions of Outlook.
- Use a screen-scraper proxy or e-mail client that tries to navigate the
web pages for the webmail client to Hotmail.
There are some screen scraper proxies or e-mail clients that will try to
use the web pages or the URLs to get to them that are the webmail client
for Hotmail. That is, they are coded to walk through the Hotmail web
site. They act like a local POP-to-HTTP proxy. You configure a POP
account in your e-mail client that connects to this protocol converter
proxy that then uses HTTP to walk through the Hotmail web site. They
aren't reliable. FreePOPs, YahooPOPs (for use with Yahoo Mail only),
and Thunderbird with its Webmail proxy and Hotmail LU are such types of
screen-scraper clients. If the webmail client changes then these
clients will fail. You cannot get your e-mails using them until their
author gets around to making a fix (to make their web-walking code match
the changes in the web site). Since they provide POP access through
their converter proxy, you only get access to your mailbox (which is the
Inbox folder shown in the webmail client). You won't get IMAP or
Deltasync access to the other folders shown in the webmail client.
Since Hotmail, even for free accounts, have POP access, there isn't any
point in using a screen scraper for Hotmail access.
Since you are using Outlook 2003, now you'll have to install the Outlook
Connector add-on and define your Hotmail accounts under the control of
that add-on. Or you could switch to POP access.
