What is the official word about Hotmail & Entourage?

L

Loren

After receiving NO warning message from Hotmail, suddenly access to
Hotmail from Entourage has been stopped? I came here to try to find an
answer, but am still not sure what's going on.

I happen to have 3 (free) hotmail accounts, and as of today not only do
2 of them still work, but I got a message saying I was getting a free
upgrade to 250 meg! The other one now gets an error message saying I
have to pay $20 a year!

Does anyone have a link to the official policy? Why was there no
warning? Why do 2 of them work and the other one doesn't?

Shouldn't buying Office 2004 be enough? That was one of the reasons I
used Entourage in the first place.

Really pissed here.
 
M

Michel Bintener

Hi Loren.
As far as I know, the access to Hotmail accounts from
Entourage/Outlook/Outlook Express should still be working; mine is at least.
I've read somewhere that it should still be accessible till April 2005,
though I might be wrong. Users of Hotmail Plus and MSN Premium, meaning
those who pay for their Hotmail accounts, will still be able to use their
e-mail programs past that deadline. Microsoft is doing this to prevent
hackers from creating free Hotmail accounts and using the programs to send
spam. While preventing spam is always a good idea, I think it is really
annoying for people who use their e-mail account in a normal and healthy
way. But Microsoft estimates that only 5-10% of all Hotmail users actually
access Hotmail through an application, so they consider it not too much of
an annoyance for their subscribers. Well, as for me, I used to use my
Hotmail account as a secondary e-mail access, but ever since Microsoft
decided to prevent the Entourage access, I've gradually switched to Yahoo,
which I can access from within Entourage/Apple Mail. Looking at alternatives
might probably be a good idea if the access feature is extremely important
to you. If you want more details, have a look at this MSNBC site:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6126905/
And yes, Microsoft upgraded the size of their e-mail storage in order to
compete with providers such as Gmail who offer users 1GB of webspace. To
solve your problem, I'd suggest you empty the cache first. Just right-click
(ctrl-click) the Hotmail account in your folder view and select "Empty
Cache". After that, Entourage will have to download all the folders again,
but normally, this step solves quite a few problems. If not, I'd delete the
Hotmail account from the Accounts window and set it up again. But I can't
really guarantee that it will work.
Buying Office 2004 is not enough, since Office and Hotmail are two
completely different branches within Microsoft, you might even consider them
as two different companies.

Michel
 
L

Loren

Michael, thanks for the details.

First off, the suggestion to empty the cache turns out to have made
matters worse. Now all my e-mail is gone from Entourage AND I still
can't access it (with the same error message). I tried quitting and
restarting too.

The other two accts still work.

Second, I must say that I don't believe this spam rationale. Anyone
who wants to spoof a hotmail e-mail can do so easily, and or I believe
a program could be wirtten to spam through a web interface too.

Third, you know a way to use Entourage with Yahoo?? I switched from
yahoo mail to hotmail because yahoo too began charging for POP access.
Is there another way?
 
M

Michel Bintener

Hmm, it seems to me that there's something really wrong with that account
then. Try if you can find some help in Hotmail-specific newsgroups, or
contact Microsoft.
Concerning Yahoo: it's really easy to use it with Entourage (or any other
e-mail application, for that matter), and it's free. I'm not sure about
Yahoo.com, since I'm with Yahoo.co.uk. Basically, you just need to get an
account, then enter your details into Entourage when setting up the account.
The incoming server should be: pop.mail.yahoo.com,
and the outgoing one: smtp.mail.yahoo.com. Again, I'm using Yahoo.co.uk, so
I'm not sure if there's a different policy for that one. Just try it.
By the way, is your malfunctioning Hotmail account still accessible via the
regular webmail interface?

Michel
 
J

Jeffrey Lovell

I think this is a Microsoft problem. I'm getting the same error on my
Hotmail account. Just happened out of the blue yesterday. I deleted the
account and reconfigured it, yet it's still saying:

Premium subscription required to access Hotmail.

If you click the Learn More... button, it opens a webpage asking for
$19.95/year.

I sorta liked this account because it DOES (or should at least) work from
within Entourage. But if this doesn't get fixed soon, I'll probably just
delete it and use my Yahoo account instead.
 
L

Loren

On 2004-11-18 15:37:46 -0500, Jeffrey Lovell <[email protected]> said:

Yeah, wtf. this is really irritating. And as for Yahoo--I just
checked, and no, in the US you have to pay $20 / year for POP access.
(Called "Mail Plus"). I use hotmail and yahoo addresses for spam and
commercial things mostly, it's not that I don't have other e-mail
addresses. I'm likely to just get rid of them if I have to pay and
find some other options.

Right now it's just really irritating.
 
S

Stephen Adams

Spymac offers a 1 GB account, including POP accessible e-mail for
no-charge. They also offer paid mail subscription services, but they've
stated that POP access will always be available at no-charge.

Visit http://www.spymac.com for more info.

Steve

P.S. Microsoft will eventually charge for all desktop mail client access
to HotMail. New HotMail accounts have no access; old accounts are
"grandfathered" in for the time being, allowing access through
Entourage, Outlook, etc. However, the time will come when even the
original free HotMail accounts (if any are still operational) will lose
the no-charge desktop mail client access. I don't know what MS's
timetable is; search their site for more info.
 
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