shahine.com/omar/

Wow, it is me or did OLC launch sooner than expected? Thats awesome news!

Unfortunately this still can't beat Google's custom domains which only costs $10 per year and gives POP3 access.

I can use any email client I like (without the need for connectors). Plus the 'auto-archive on POP3 download' feature in GMail lets me have a server-side copy as well as a local copy.

Why do you use Hotmail?

Microsoft is developing yet another email client? WTF?

Merill,

It's true that with Hotmail, you can't use any email client. For me, it's great, since I love Outlook. (But if one doesn't, they can use WL Mail.)

In fact, just yesterday night, I downloaded the connector, and set my domain to WL Custom Domains for free. Now I can use mail from my favorite client, and from the browser when I'm not at my desktop.

Omar,

I currently use Windows Live Custom Domains and love it as a FREE service. The only problem I have with it is now that my MX records are controlled by hotmail, I can no longer use System.Net.Mail to send e-mails via my website. Google Domains offers a solution because you can use their pop server (authenticated via SSL) to authenticate and send with their custom domains account. Hotmail does not have that capability.

What is "Premium only"? I'm paying the yearly fee for Hotmail, but it says calendar sync isn't available... Is there a support site?

This is how I'm setup right now:
- I only pay $10 per year and this is for my domain
- Google Apps (hosting my email for merill.net for free)
- Outlook 2007 (POP3) to download mails
+ I have a local copy of all my mails for the last 7 years on a .PST (This is my backup in case Google or any other service provider messes things up)
+ Google archives all my downloaded mails so that I can get to them on the web
- I have all my downloaded mails in one location and when I roam I use gmail web access
- Plaxo takes care of having an online version of my Notes, Calendar, Tasks all for free

To summarize:
- Outlook 2007 on my computer gives rich client access to email, tasks, calendar, etc..
- GMail + Plaxo give free web access to all of the stuff I have on the client
- I've been using this setup since GMail apps launched in beta

Notably for power users one of the key plus factors with GMail is that I can set it up to forward all my mails to other accounts based on various rules. I'm currently testing out Live Mail and the Outlook Connector by forwarding mails to my Hotmail account.

Gave this a spin -- nice work, seems to work better than the previous WebDAV-based setup.

Although if you send a message over Outlook (2003), it *still* doesn't save the message in Hotmail's Sent Items -- it saves it in the local store. Grumble. I know one can work around this by adding some rules, but should one have to?

I've been spending a little more time on Windows Live Hotmail and the space taken by the ads are nauseating with flashing ones at the top and another on the left taking up nearly 30% of the real-estate.

Compare this to Gmail which shows a barely noticeable text ad pane on the left.

I know that this is a free service but GMail seems to be offering a better experience while still giving it away for free.

@Omar, I do have SP2 (I basically let Microsoft Update do its thing) -- the Outlook About box says 11.8118.8132 SP2.

I wonder if this is because the account was set up prior to applying SP2. I'll try recreating the PST sometime.

I've been using Hotmail for a number of years now and have been paying $20/yr for the Hotmail Plus service; I'm glad to (finally!) see the new Outlook Connector.

However, it's missing one (very) important feature of the old HTTP mail connection, a feature which is present in both WLM and WLMD: the ability to send from a different email address--something other than @hotmail.com.

The email address I give to everybody is my own domain name; it's a simple matter at my registrar to forward that to my hotmail account.

Yes, I could switch my domain name over to Windows Live Custom Domains, but that's a bit of a hassle (IM addresses, new account for Hotmail Plus, etc.). And it would be an even bigger hassle if I ever decided to use Custom Domains (or they went away), changing a forward address is easy compared to mucking with the MX records. Finally, Custom Domains doesn't support email fowarding, which makes me reluctant to start using that service.

So, *PLEASE* add the ability to send from a different "From:" address (not just "Reply-To:") before the new connector gets out of beta.

Supporting other mail clients besides Outlook and WLM should also be a priority and would show your willingness to collaborate and be open. To do this you could document the Delta Sync protocol used by the Outlook Connector for other clients to implement for free. If Google and Yahoo can do it, then you can do it to. Same goes for your Messenger protocol.

DeltaSync sounds a lot like Exchange ICS (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/aa142535.aspx). Is there a relationship between the two?

Hey Omar, so I’ve been eagerly anticipating and following the release of the Outlook Connector and it’s working great! I just have this one problem with my Windows Live Hotmail through Outlook and was hoping you could direct me to the right person/maybe mention it to the right team at MS. Here’s the comment I left on the email support space at http://emailsupport.spaces.live.com/

-----
Hey all, first off, great job with the new Windows Live Hotmail (I have Plus) and the interface guys--looks really nice and slick and I like using it when I have to use the web interface. I'm also using it with my Outlook 2003 and the new Outlook Connector which works great too. Just one thing (and if not you guys, can you direct me to the right place):

Any idea why Outlook sets two Message-IDs when it sends Hotmail messages through Outlook (I guess when you have an Exchange server configured as your primary account, which most people that use Outlook at work will...)? To wit in a recent message I sent to myself to test there were both of these:

Message-ID: <BAY118-DS164856776D6205474E375B0110@phx.gbl>

and

Message-ID: <514801c7b36e$cfe7d500$0d00a8c0@xxxxxxxx.xxx >

The first is the normail Message-ID from the Hotmail servers; the latter is the one that my Exchange server sets for messages from me. I assume you're aware that certain things barf when they see two Message-IDs? I have a web forum that won't post messages from me when I send Hotmail messages through my Outlook b/c of this.

Now I had been using HTTP with Outlook and had hoped the Outlook Connector would've fixed this issue, but alas, no such luck! So while I know this seems like a connector issue, it did happen before the Connector with HTTP access to Hotmail too. Is it an Outlook issue, or something you guys can control...? Just didn't know where to go to get this fixed as regular MSN/Hotmail support would probably be pretty useless, heh. If someone can, feel free to reply back to me with more info/directions; thanks so much, and keep up the good work!
-----

Any thoughts? Not really a Connector issue since it happened with HTTP access to my Hotmail Plus account too; more of an issue either with Hotmail or Outlook huh? I don’t know if 2007 still does it; guess I can upgrade and see, though I don’t suspect the behavior will change.

Well figured it could’t hurt to mention it to you guys so you know; any help/direction you can provide on this would be much appreciated as I’m down with the Hotmail and want it to get better/more functional! Cheers!

BINO

P.S. I left this as a comment for Richard too since you guys seem to know your stuff... ;)

Hmm...I just d/l this to use with Hotmail. I have more than 1500 mails in my inbox not sorted into folders. I already used headers only, but it took a while each send/receive. Now I don't have that problem anymore, which is great !
The only thing I've found out is that it's displaying the email address in the 'from' column instead of the name of the person. When I click on the message, it changes into the name, but I'd like to see it right away. How to change this?

Hello Omar,

Can you please guide me with this.

We need a C++ procedure that will allow us to reliably send email using the Free Hotmail & Office Live accounts from our proprietary email client. The proprietary client is NOT Outlook / Thunderbird etc. I see someone implemented this for Thunderbird in Javascript, however I need it in C++

Thunderbird:
http://webmail.mozdev.org/index.html
http://webmail.mozdev.org/installation.html - Hotmail

The sent email needs to be saved in the Sent folder of the Hotmail account. The procedure must not break current Hotmail session when called from IE/FF extension and user is logged in Hotmail already.

The procedure will need to accept the following parameters:
(login, password, from address, to, cc, bcc, subject, html mail body) and performs sending via Hotmail service.

For testing we can just use an executable that sends sample email using that library.

function prototype should be something like this:
bool SendViaHotmail(const char* login, const char* password, const char* from, const char* to, const char* cc, const char* bcc, const char* utf8subject, const char* utf8htmlbody);

Error handling:
In case of any error in sending, function should call some external function
void ReportError(const char* errorText);

Hi.

I am using Windows Live Mail Desktop (latest build)with three accounts - two Hotmail, one live.com. All of them are free accounts.

Since around December 15, 2007 i can NO LONGER download ANY mails from either account! I can still send perfectly and see that mails are there - headers are sync'ed but the actual mails won't. The error message points to the DeltaSync server.

I have tested with several ISP's (ADSL, two dialup, leased line), on two different computers, three OS's (Vista, XP pro, XP home) and three different versions of WLMD (two betas, one final). Nothing works.

Send e-mail to customer support and was asked for a number of details (screen shot, log files etc), provided those - and since December 27 i am getting the identical reply to every follow-up mail that "we are working on it but can't give you a time frame".

For me, DeltaSync sucks big time. I am using Outlook XP to get my mail now, painfully slow and unstable on Vista (my own and main PC). So far Microsoft hasn't provided ANY help (the e-mails seem to be machine-generated) and i am VERY frustrated over the inability to use my e-mail accounts, two of which i have since over 8 years.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Ever since I updated to IE 7.0, I can no longer get Hotmail to work inside Outlook. It keeps asking me for my hotmail password. What gives?