Talk:Outlook.com/Archive 1

Number of Visitors
I erased that Hotmail serves millions of people worldwide and thousands of people everyday, cause, like, how do WE know those numbers? Besides, the site doesnt have any numbers of users listed, such as Airliners.net does. Antonio Sexoloco Martin
 * According to alexa.com, 25% of all web traffic is to msn.com, and 75% of all msn.com traffic is to hotmail.msn.com, meaning that about 19% of all web traffic is to hotmail. (By comparison about 12% of all web traffic is to Yahoo! Mail). I think numbers in the millions has got to be right. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:50, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)--Kbh3rd 04:09, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has a little less than 0.2%, and there were 6 million "visits" in February 2004 according to Webalizer. Extrapolating, Hotmail probably has something like 600 million visits. Google with 16% of traffic claims to serve 6000 million searches per month - so presumably a visit is longer than a single search. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:10, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

How many accounts got upgraded

 * discussion copied from Talk:Yahoo! Mail

"An e-mail war between Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google" How is Microsoft into this war ? Any references ? Jay 12:11, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Several websites have been reporting that Hotmail has already given free 25 MB quota upgrades to some of its free users:    -- Vesta 13:10, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Has any hotmail user moved upto 25MB ? My e-mail address has 25 MB. Or any official statement by Microsoft or Hotmail that says there is an upgrade ? I think the contents of the articles are just the views of some authors, and maybe there's nothing official thats happening. Jay 13:32, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * That is a good point.. I'll reword the sentence in the article in a minute. See if those changes are somewhat more accurate. :)  -- Vesta 16:46, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: Microsoft confirmed that the quota is going up (250 MB) in the fall. It's listed directly on Hotmail.com.  -- Vesta 03:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Outlook
I'm deleting the Outlook Express instruction on the grounds that Wikipedia is not a how-to manual as well as the fact that a) the instructions will change over time as the program changes, and b) the version that these instructions are for is nowhere stated. --Kbh3rd 04:09, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Storage

 * Hotmail offers its members 250MB of free e-mail storage, be it used for sent or received e-mail.

False? I've had my hotmail account for almost 6 years now (since late 1998) and I still have the old 2MB of space. Furthermore, every single person I know who has a Hotmail account, be it old or new, has still the same 2MB.
 * However a large number of those with accounts predating this offer still have only 2MB storage.

Not accurate. I tried opening a new Hotmail account, and guess what... still 2MB. So, for post-offer accounts it's also 2MB. How can this be? Could that 250MB thing be just a lie? I've fixed the article, but maybe that line should be deleted and replaced by "offers its members 2MB of free e-mail storage...". --Fibonacci 03:29, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The reason I put in the line about a large number of users... is that I know of one singular person who has received their 250MB update. My 1999 era account is still 2MB as well Kiand 07:16, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I just noticed that my account was finally upgraded to 250MB today; took em long enough. Now my daily spam wont take so much room.--Lucky13pjn 01:28, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi, Hotmail gives the 250MB upgrade after you've been using it for 30 days. 86.146.210.99 23:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)Umar

Third world countries account not upgraded
I have two email accounts, one is one year old, showing UK as my country. Other is showing a third world country(more then two years old). The account which showed UK got upgraded!. It is not coincidence my other friend had very same experience with his two accounts. I had to change the country because similar policy used by microsoft earlier regarding games. If you chose a third world country they say "Games are temporarily not available" and when u change the country signout close and signin again games start to work. (I found this fix from a website) But if you change the country, capacity doesn't increase Perhaps it checks earlier country selected which registering with hotmail. (if you don't believe me make two new accounts one with US and other with Pakistan you'll find the difference). Zain 09:55, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I had an account set up with Argentina as my country, changed it to US/New York and within 2 days i had 250MB. Same process worked for other people. hboregio 04:30, 03 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Mine just upgraded this week (on wed 17 May 2006),beat that.so much 4 equality.--Adaobi 12:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Look like I live in third world country. I will create a new account and give country USA. and I will get 250 MB space! (25MB in start and 250 MB after one month). By the way you can give gmail.com a try. 1 GB space. or yahoo.com 250 MB. Zain 20:21, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My account with Ireland hasn't been upgraded above 2MB. These most certainly aren't third-world countries. Ireland, and probably other countries are richer than the US on an actual cash-in-pocket basis, both are definately richer than the UK on the same basis. So its not "Third-world countries" they're ignoring, its countries that don't give MSN lots of money. Ironically MSN.ie opened up around a few months ago, and Microsoft are considering moving even more employees to Ireland.... Kiand 22:50, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * UK and US are working for sure. Just give it a try and make a new account. may be it will give you an idea. Zain 22:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see the use in lying and changing my mail adress to get more storage. I may as well just change my mail adress and use GMail. Which I already have, the Hotmail account is a legacy only.Kiand 23:02, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Well it is not 'lying' it is testing ;-) I mean you can first 'test' it by giving UK then you can 'correct' it by ireland :-D. Any way It was my experience on hotmail. That they give different facilities depending on the country which you select. But I need more confirmations to put this 'bais' in the main article. Zain 23:06, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

User agreement
This page alleges that according to Hotmail's user agreement, everything you send through Hotmail becomes property of Microsoft. If that is true, then the fact should be included in this article. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 16:32, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * MSN Terms of Use It could be #6. Daleliop1 02:30, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

POP3
I can still use my Outlook for checking mail, and its April 6th. Then again its still early in april
 * Just received this email today:
 * Recently, Hotmail® announced that in order to improve customer experience and reduce spam and junk e-mail abuse on MSN® services, Hotmail will no longer allow new e-mail accounts to be accessed via Microsoft® Office Outlook® and Outlook Express.


 * We are pleased to inform you that because you are an existing and valued customer, at this time your current Hotmail and MSN account(s) are exempt from this restriction and you will be able to continue enjoying access to those accounts from Outlook or Outlook Express. However, any new Hotmail or MSN accounts you create will not be accessible via Outlook or Outlook Express.
 * Seems only new accounts are cut off. This makes sense since anybody who still has an account presumably has been using them for legitimate purposes and therefore deserves to keep the service.--Will2k 02:23, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

I remember when one could check a POP3 email from Hotmail... that is a feature that used to exist, and disappeared after Microsoft bought Hotmail. -Unknown

"Dogfood" edit

 * "It is an embarrassment to Microsoft that even after 6 years of Hotmail being under it's umbrella, critical parts of Hotmail services are not running Microsoft's own products - defying Microsoft's own mantra of eating its own dog food ." - Not only is the tone of this sentence overly hostile and POV, the link explicitly states that the "dogfood" mantra applies only to pre-release and beta software, which Hotmail certainly is not. Removed. -Simon Crowley 07:50, 25 July 2005 (UTC).

As of Nov 06, 2005 - Hotmail in Mountain View, California 'Development Team' is hiring Solaris experts for it's Hotmail property - meaning that there is large critical components in Hotmail running Solaris.

"Kahuna" - new Hotmail
Found an interesting video today. It is quite long and there is lots of juicy information on the new Hotmail codenamed, "Kahuna". If anyone wants to gather notes from the video please feel free to do so and put it in the article. --  Thorpe  talk 22:30, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

USA-centric storage size mentioned
Why is maximum size of a hotmail mailbox mentioned as 250Mb in the usa before the real (world-wide) avaible storage space? I just created a new account and I only have 5Mb! I believe the world should come first and then the USA.

The topic Storage should read something like:
 * Hotmail only offers 5 MB of free e-mail storage, in contrast to the 2.5 Gb storage space of Google's Gmail. However for residents of the USA the size was increased after the introduction of Google's Gmail. There is a 10 MB attachment limit. It has been reported that MSN may soon offer 2 GB of free e-mail storage to members [7]. At present, customers can pay a fee to receive 2 GB of storage and 20 MB attachments.

Also the reference to hotmail from the Gmail page should also reflect the real storage space. -Unknown

Old/legacy Hotmail site/software
Does anyone have a cache or more information on the old Hotmail site? I remember I had a few thousand mails, collected while I was travelling the world - correspondence with people I have long since forgotten.

I was about to download all my mail so I can keep it in an archive. When Microsoft took over the site, first they changed the nice, neat, clean, clutter-free layout. Put in Ad's. Soon the Hotmail site became so slow, I could not use it anymore.

Then my account got so spammed, and then Microsoft deleted my account, and all my contacts and emails, before I could archive anything. Interesting to note, the original Hotmail had a lot in common with today's GMail - in it's simplicity. I am just terribly disappointed in Microsofts TERRIBLE planning in taking over the site. I am sure they angered a lot of people! But what do they care, they can do anything, right?!

Anyways, Just curious, and for interests sake - it would be lovely to now reflect on how Hotmail was and operated in light of everything we have gotten used to today. So if anybody has any info, caches, links, do add it here! -Unknown

221 million users = 35.5%?
"As of new reports on 30th August 2005, Hotmail has the largest number of free web-mail users with 221 million users, or 35.5 percent of the world, according to comScore Media Metrix data." This seems suspect. I've removed it from now, but we need a source, and the bit about 35.5% needs to be clarified. Assuming the world has 6.5 billion people, that means 3.4%. I don't know what the total number of internet or webmail users is but it needs to be specified if that's what we're referring to.  splintax  (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC).
 * It's also unclear if they consider multiple users. I access my 5 hotmail accounts pretty regularly from the 3 different computers (with different IPs) that I work on; so it's likely comScore would count me more than once. -Unknown

Rumours talking about "soon" need dates
The Storage paragraph used to say:
 * "It has been rumored that MSN may soon offer 2 GB of free e-mail storage to members.".

But this is practically meaningless with zero context. Did that rumour start in 2001? Has it since been flatly denied? If this stayed in the article, it would become misleading over time. If someone can stick in a date, then it would have some value.


 * You forgot to remove a link, so I did it and I pasted it here. If you had taken the time to click, you would have found the answers to your question. CNET also reviewed the new Hotmail with 2gb on their site . This is not only a rumor, it is true. As a result, I am adding this sentence back to the page. -Unknown

I hate Hotmail
Doesn't this link show bias? Also some of the information it links to is out of date - the forwarding problem in Hotmail has been fixed. Nico 22:22, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

How old is your Hotmail account?
Are there any ways to check how old your e-mail address is? Skimming through the hotmail tools and options, and checking around online has brought me zero help. If anyone knows how, please let us know! -Unknown


 * The only way I know of is by checking the date of the first email received, (if it hasn't been deleted), usually a welcome e-mail from MSN. --Niconc 19:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Mine is 11 years old almost. I got mine just after HoTMaiL went public and have had it ever since. I think I was in the first 100 users if memory serves correct. At 42 I'm getting feeble and my mind wobbles a tad. --Scott Grayban 17:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You can see the date you registered by logging in at http://account.live.com. --Jskw 12:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Registered for Live, or for Hotmail? Tyciol 19:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm also another '96 registered user So knocking on the best part of 11 years. Tycol: That account page tells me when I signed up for my hotmail account (24th November 1996) (which now seems to be my live account too so I guess it depends on when you registerd? Neosophist 19:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with FireFox
Hello I am a regular user of firefox. In the articl it is sead that hotmail gives problems with firefox. I dont have any problems with it. (except somethimes the retyping of the pasword to acces my account) what other (minor ? ore major) problems are reported to justify the fact that "hotmail does not support open source"? -OP


 * Hi, here is one noted problem against Hotmail supproting open source-"Hotmail's full features are not available on browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer. These features include a customised right-click context menu to make Hotmail function similar to Microsoft's Outlook mail clients." I hope this answers your question.--Greenunity


 * Hi greenutity, thanks for the answer. Are you speaking out of experience ? I just took the test, looking at my hotmail account in Internet Explorer and in Firefox, I dont see any difference. I dont find any right clix context menu, needer in IE ore in FF. -OP


 * Hi, no I'm not. I think though this applies to the versions of Hotmail that you pay a subscription for. So I would really like to here whether from a paying hotmail user whether FF problems do actually arise. I think that the information may also be out-dated, so I will look into that aswell. If a paying hotmail user doesn't have problems with FF, then I will change the article to make it more accurate.--Greenunity 07:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism Section

 * move information about Hotmail running on non-M$ OSes and bug allowing anyone to access Hotmail accounts without a password

The information about Hotmail being run on Solaris and BSD, and suffering from a decrease in performance after switching to IIS, belongs in the Criticism section. In fact, most of the Miscellaneous information belongs in the Criticism section. In addition, I remember reading about a bug which allowed anyone to access any Hotmail account. Could someone help research information on this bug and insert the information in the Criticism section of the article? J.L.W.S. The Special One 07:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, it contains weasel sentence: "...Some users have suggested that Microsoft's customer care towards free users is poor...." inky 01:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Under miscellaneous section
"By 2002, the incoming SMTP services were transitioned off of the Solaris platform onto NT, requiring significantly more hardware to maintain the same mail receiving service." This needs citation. The implication of the statement is that only the operating software changed. However, more hardware could be needed for many reasons, including the ever increasing of SPAM. -A BSD user from Atlanta

Using Outlook Express
From ;878462 Microsoft Support]:
 * "MSN Hotmail no longer supports Distributed Authoring and Versioning (DAV) for free user accounts. Outlook Express uses the DAV interface to connect to Hotmail. Only paid Hotmail accounts will work correctly with Outlook Express. If you configured Outlook Express or Outlook to access your Hotmail account before DAV support was ended, you may still be able to use Outlook Express to open a free Hotmail account. However, eventually Hotmail will no longer support DAV for all free Hotmail accounts."

This could be useful for the article. TheUncleBob 15:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Account deletion
Another issue related to the 30-days required login period: cancellation. Last time I checked, there was no to explicitly and immediately cancel your account. The only recourse was to not log in for some period (90 days now, according to the article) and wait for your account to expire. Is this still the case? If so, it should be added. Pimlottc 05:22, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Safari
That bit about Safari is patent nonsense. It works fine on my brother's mac. -Unknown

Removed link
No idea why this was here.... RN 16:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

hotmail.co.uk
What other countries are available other than .co.uk? -Unknown

Release date
Prospective gold release date anyone? - Zophras —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.134.148.96 (talk • contribs) 13:55, 25 July 2006.
 * Not known yet - as soon as a release date is announced it will appear on the article. --Jskw 19:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Now that Vista's out, still no idea when Windows Live Mail is to replace MSN Hotmail.? Or maybe a date when the release date will be announced.? --LAUBO 10:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Still no official release date, but it is implied here that the next update to the beta version will be the final one, when all Hotmail accounts are upgraded. So it should be within a month or so. A Cornish Pasty 17:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * M10 is released today (see the blog above). Still no word on the final version.17:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * M10 is supposed to be the final version. And M10 has just been announced, not rolled out yet (released). --A Cornish Pasty 21:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it said on the blog page that they will slowly upgrade user's accounts to M10, so not everyone will get it at once. Probably will take a few weeks for everyone to get it. Also I think M10 is the final BETA version (if it wasn't mentioned already).Swanny 06:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Languages
More languages in M7 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.230.14.147 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 3 August 2006.
 * I will move the list of languages to the features section; it's getting a bit numerous for the overview. --Jskw 19:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Weasel words and NPOV
This article is oozing with weasel words and NPOV, I presume by fans of Gmail or haters of Microsoft. I will take a look at the article soon and attempt to make it much more neutral. --Jskw 19:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There's also the new section entitled "Customer Experience" which was seemingly written by someone who was in a bad mood. No citations or anything, just this big rant and probably stemming from personal experience. --Jvd897 19:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree completely about the Customer Experience section. Should the whole section just be erased?--Hukt own fonikz 18:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Probably. Anyone want to counter that motion before I delete it? --Jvd897 19:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't read that section, but I thought the article read more like an advertisement instead of encyclopedia. 72.210.66.209 (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
Nothing special, but someone has been vandalizing the page related to Windows Live Mail. I'm a new Wikipidian so I don't know how to report this but if anybody does please do so. Thank you.


 * No need to report it; just change it.

Invitations?
It says in the article that you can use the beta if an existing beta tester sends you an invitation? I have never seen that option before. I only ask here because I thought that if it is an "old feature" then it can be removed from the article. Swanny92

I agree with this one ^^^ I have never been able to give out invitations. I received an official one from MSN Hotmail at the time, but that is about it --‹-cal-› 23:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Totally untrue. The beta version is extinct.

Hotmail / MSN Hotmail / Windows Live Hotmail
Let's gain some perspective here, people...

Before every mention of the word "Hotmail" (referring to the new version) is edit-warred to Windows Live Hotmail, and the page is filled with not-exactly-rolling-off-the-tongue Windows Live Hotmail 1000 times over, let's remember that Hotmail is still Hotmail, and it can still be called Hotmail, especially when it's moved out of beta. Nobody calls it MSN Hotmail, and the MSN is just changing to Windows Live, so nobody is gonna call it Windows Live Hotmail. So when referring to the general Hotmail application, and once beta has been removed, the term "Hotmail" will still be acceptable as a colloquial, short hand version, instead of constantly calling it Windows Live Hotmail. My rant is over, before the problem has begun. -The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.147.175.80 (talk) 17:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC).
 * I disagree. Just because it isn't "rolling-off-the-tongue" doesn't mean that it isn't the official name . Applications such as Windows Live Spaces are rarely referred to as just "Spaces". You don't see the Windows Live OneCare article page being named "OneCare". Also, your "once it's out of beta" argument is flawed, because keep in mind that the current main Hotmail page isn't actually called Hotmail, it's MSN Hotmail. So what do you suppose we do once it's out of beta, rename it to just Hotmail? I think not. --Cumbiagermen 08:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No I never said that, I just meant that every mention of Hotmail within the article doesn't have to say Windows Live Hotmail, that after the beta it will still be commonly known as Hotmail. The article will of course be titled Windows Live Hotmail, I never disputed that. Perhaps I was a bit hasty with my rant and should have waited until the problem I was referring to actually happened. 86.147.175.80 13:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It think it's referred to "Windows Live Hotmail" just so that it won't be confused with the original "Hotmail/MSN Hotmail". Sometimes it's necessary to make such distinguishments between the two. Before the name change from "Windows Live Mail", we can still refer to the old one as "Hotmail" and the new one as "Live Mail", but the name change just adds to the confusion. Pikablu0530 00:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Title
Why was it renamed to windows live Hotmail? I use it and i havn't seen anyone call it windows live Hotmail, and it says on the site windows live mail.
 * It is now officially named "Windows Live Hotmail" according to the Team Blog post. This name change should be shown in the actual site in the next milestone release or update. Pikablu0530 00:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * See this blog entry for more information: . -- Jvd897 00:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)