Q: You just said that the latest Hotmail update has begun rolling out, but I still haven’t got the latest bits yet! What’s happening?
A: Microsoft rolls out Hotmail updates by clusters (not by geography). The team rolls the update out to one cluster in the first two weeks of the rollout schedule to test for issues and makes minor tweaks to ensure that everything goes smoothly. A few additional clusters with different characteristics are then updated for further tweaks and testing. If everything goes smoothly, the remaining clusters (almost 98% of all clusters) will then be upgraded. This whole process takes about 1-2 months to complete. Take a read of this article for more information.
Hotmail has completed the initial Wave 4 rollout to all users on August 3, 2010.
Q: I’m not seeing “Shipping updates” under Quick views in Hotmail, and I can’t see the options to upload Office doc and Create album to SkyDrive when composing an e-mail. Is there something wrong?
A: These features are currently limited to Hotmail users in certain geographical locations only. To access these features, you will need to set your Windows Live ID locale settings to “United States” using Windows Live Accounts. Please be aware that if you do this and that you are not physically within the United States, your Hotmail inbox may display the time zones incorrectly. You can change back your locale settings at any time by visiting http://accounts.live.com.
Q: What are the Exchange ActiveSync settings for Hotmail?
A: The Exchange ActiveSync settings for Hotmail are as follow:
- Exchange Server: m.hotmail.com
- Use SSL? Yes
- Username: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
- Password: Your Windows Live ID password
- Domain: (Leave blank)
Q: What are the POP3 settings for Hotmail?
A: The POP3 settings for Hotmail are as follow:
- POP Server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
- POP SSL required? Yes
- SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)
- Authentication required? Yes
- TLS/SSL required? Yes
- Username: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
- Password: Your Windows Live ID password
Q: Which phones does Exchange ActiveSync support?
A: From the Windows Live Solution Center article, the following devices have been tested against Exchange ActiveSync:
- Windows Mobile 6.x
- Windows Phone 7
- iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
- Nokia E-series, S-series, N-series running Mail for Exchange application
Refer to this page from Windows Live Solutions Center for the current known issues for Exchange ActiveSync.
Q: How many e-mails can I send per day?
A: For free Hotmail users, you can send up to 300 e-mails within any 24-hour period. Note that sending 1 e-mail with 5 recipients counts as 5 e-mails, not 1. Hotmail Plus customers has a higher limit than free Hotmail customers.
Q: What is the maximum number of recipients I can have in a single e-mail?
A: For free Hotmail users, you can add up to 100 recipients in a single e-mail. Hotmail Plus customers has a higher limit than free Hotmail customers.
Q: How many aliases can I create?
A: You can add up to five aliases per year to your Hotmail account, up to fifteen aliases in total.
Q: My contacts from Facebook are de-duplicated in Messenger and Profile, but not in the contacts view of Windows Live Mail. Why is this?
A: When Windows Live finds two contacts that it believes are the same, it will mark them as such in its database without actually merging the contacts – it is just extra information that gets stored with the contacts. Then each ‘view’ of contacts can decide whether it wants to use that extra data to display each contact separately, or to visually merge them into one. For example in Messenger (and some Hotmail views) you can show your contacts merged, or teased apart individually. In Windows Live Mail, contacts will show you each and every record individually.
Based on Microsoft’s research data, it shows that most users use Windows Live Mail’s contacts view to ‘manage’ their list (as opposed to Messenger, where people mostly ‘find a person to chat with’), so it was decided that showing each contact independently in Windows Live Mail’s contacts view is a better choice – it is easier to edit / delete each record. Unfortunately, Microsoft did not have time to add the options to merge / tease apart contacts in this view. (via Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager, Windows Live Essentials)
