Warning: Live Mail 2012 with hotmail/outlook/etc. email addresses

Jivesinger

Bad news for anyone who uses Microsoft's email client: Windows Live Mail 2012, and who has an email address with hotmail/ outlook.com/ live.com/ msn.com.

Windows Live Mail 2012 will stop working with these email addresses sometime next month, June 2016.

I believe Microsoft should be emailing this one out to affected users, but just in case everyone doesn't get the email:
https://support.office.com/en-GB/article/Windows-Live-Mail-2012-will-not-connect-to-Outlook-com-45453b92-373b-4bbb-88ca-f8ec74f8e8fd
https://blogs.office.com/2016/05/05/using-windows-live-mail-2012-with-outlook-com-time-to-update-your-email-application/

What isn't clear to me is what happens if you're using other email clients such as Thunderbird, or even older versions of MS Outlook.

ChiefGrasscutter

I would hazard a guess that MS were using some propriety sync method for live mail quite separate from the usual industry standard imap/pop protocols.
If so then I'd guess that they are changing this protocol so the program (livemail 2012 client) using the old version will no longer work.

If they were actually proposing deleting the pop/imap protocol facilities used by normal email client programs it would indeed be explosive news.

Interesting that it is only affecting the .com versions of hotmail and not the country specific ones eg hotmail.co.uk

Jivesinger

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

If they were actually proposing deleting the pop/imap protocol facilities used by normal email client programs it would indeed be explosive news

As far as I can tell, Windows Live Mail does indeed support pop and imap so I think some alternatives are:

1. there is some reason why pop/imap won't work for Microsoft's own email accounts within Live Mail, but will work when using outlook.com with other email clients, or
2. Outlook.com will continue to work after all with pop/imap, Live Mail will still work, and they just haven't told anyone or
3. Outlook.com (etc.) won't work with pop/imap, and a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of problems.

It's not clear to me which, if any, of these is the correct explanation.

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Interesting that it is only affecting the .com versions of hotmail and not the country specific ones eg hotmail.co.uk

I'd bet it affects the hotmail.co.uk addresses too, and they just didn't mention it.

ChiefGrasscutter

Maybe this is to do with calendar/contacts etc sync'ing - wild guessing here I confess....
So maybe that imap and pop will still work on live mail in respect of emails alone but the calendar sync part will no longer work.
It appears live mail 2012 uses Exchange Active Sync as the protocol.

Jivesinger

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Maybe this is to do with calendar/contacts etc sync'ing - wild guessing here I confess....
So maybe that imap and pop will still work on live mail in respect of emails alone but the calendar sync part will no longer work.
It appears live mail 2012 uses Exchange Active Sync as the protocol.

Ah that would make sense - you could be right.