More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

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Microsoft Office Outlook Connector

Guillermo Taylor @ Microsoft — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:41:36 GMT

Decidí esta mañana probar este nuevo beta nuestro, en particular para ver si la experiencia de usuario

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

DavidK — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 05:34:58 GMT

@Matthew... I had this response just now...

-------------------------------

Hello David,

Thank you for writing to Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support. My name is Un-named and I have read that you encounter an error message when synchronizing the Calendar through Outlook Connector. I know how inconvenient this can be on your part. I am definitely willing to assist you with this.

David, please be guided that Outlook Connector is only available for MSN Premium subscribers only. For more information, please contact the Support Team of MSN Premium.

For your convenience, I provided you the information where to contact them.

MSN Premium Technical Support

Transfer Code 21

Telephone number (800) 494-2962

Hours of Operation Monday - Friday 05:00 to 22:00 Pacific Time (UTC-8)

Saturday and Sunday 05:00 to 17:00 Pacific Time (UTC-8)

Technical Support Web site http://support.msn.com

I understand that you may feel that you are being bounced from one support group to the other, but they are the correct team to contact for this particular issue. Please accept my apology for not being able to assist you fully.

You are valuable at Windows Live, and we look forward to providing you with consistent and effective service. We appreciate your input and involvement in our Windows Live products.

Sincerely,

Un-named

Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support

-------------------------

So let's not be under the illusion that a standard hotmail plus subscription is enough to get your calendar syncronised. IT'S NOT.

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

Matthew — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:40:28 GMT

Brandon: As Chris said, I was referring to the fact that download page states "A paid subscription-based e-mail account from MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live". WLHotmail Plus is such a paid subscription. Also, the word "Premium" doesn't appear once on that page. I would think Microsoft would want to keep Plus subscribers by offering this service, but with the recent FAQ they posted, apparently it was intended.

As far as the possible ad opportunity, I was referring to the Active Search advertisements for US accounts. Who knows if it will be there in the final version, turned on or off, but it is a possible ad opportunity.

Thanks for the comments, I wasn't offended.

@Matthew

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

DavidK — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 06:20:52 GMT

Well, I've just renewed my old Plus subscription in the hope that I could sync my calendar and notes.... but I can't... does it need to be a "Premium" subscription???

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

Drazick — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:08:48 GMT

My account address is USA. So that's not the problem.

Maybe because I use a localized version of Outlook.

Yet this problem is spread, so I guess there's more in it.

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

yanverm — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:49:33 GMT

@ Drazick

Regarding to the hotmail support team, the outlook connector is only available in countries where office live & MSN premium is active (such as the US, UK,...). I still don't understand why it works for one of my two live mail plus accounts... (and I live in Belgium) I supose I'm just the lucky guy... ;-)

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

Drazick — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:14:58 GMT

I have Live Hotmail free account.

I downloaded outlook connector and install it.

It's my only mail account in Outlook.

When I open Outlook it says I don't have a subscription.

Why?

I don't need Contacts / Calendar sync. Only mail, yet the service isn't available to me.

Thanks.

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

yanverm — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:14:33 GMT

To all of you guys!

First of all. I have some bad news. I tried it again with another live mail plus account I own, and it didn’t work! I could synchronize my mails and contact, but not my calendar! So that’s something strange, why can I with one account and not with the other one? The only difference between the two is that the one that works, is a live domain (http://domains.live.com ). So unfortunately I think, you won’t be able to have that calendar working with “classic” hotmail (plus) accounts… Damn, that’s frustrating, why do we pay for the “plus” then!? I hope the guys from Microsoft will be clever enough to change this in the near future, otherwise they will lose a lot of paying subscribers!

@zeke009

It won’t help to delete your hotmail account and to re-install it. Hotmail will stay in separate folders. I think the best thing to do, is to copy-paste your contacts from one folder to the other… (with a PC: ctrl+a, ctrl+c and in your hotmail contacts folder: ctrl+v).( If you want your main folders from hotmail on top, follow the steps below.)

In meantime I have a lot of people asking, how to synchronize with your mobile phone / PDA, here’s the way to do it:

I would first try it out in a new profile, so you still have a "backup". If successful you can delete your old profile. To create a new profile: under start button, configuration settings, email). Give in another email address than your hotmail (e.g. your provider pop3 account). When opening outlook, go to outlook connector and enter your hotmail login & password. You will need to restart outlook. After restarting, go to extra, accounts and make your hotmail account the standard account. Delete your old main account in there (= your pop3 e.g.).

In outlook 2007, there's next to the email tab a tab where you can adjust the place where the data is stored (in Dutch called 'gegevensbestanden'). I must be there somewhere too in outlook 2003, as far as I can remember. There you have to make your hotmail account the standard account too. (you can't delete your personal folders, so just leave this). Restart outlook and your pc again. After reopening outlook, your hotmail account should now be on top, just as the contacts folder, calendar etc. This mean, when you make a new connection with your mobile phone or PDA, this folders (on top) will get synchronized. (how to make this connection, depends of your phone of course… (see the manual ;-) ). Just be aware that if you have already contacts in your phone, they will get into outlook and of course also into hotmail. (also in the other direction: your hotmail contacts get in your phone). So you have best one of the two blank… or you can clean it out afterwards…

Good luck!

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

zeke009 — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:59:39 GMT

@yanverm:

Are you saying that I should delete my hotmail account in Outlook 2007 and recreate it?

Would this allow my Outlook Contacts to sync directly with Hotmail? Because as it stands right now I can only view my Contacts as seperate entities. Meaning I have 2 address books, 1 for Outlook and 1 for Hotmail and I can't sync them.

I would really prefer they revisit this utility and see what they had done with the old IntelliSync for Hotmail a few years ago. That little GUI did exactly what I needed it to do.

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

yanverm — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:24:11 GMT

A little update about the installation (see my previous posts).

I installed it on a second PC (windows XP this time, outlook 2007). I followed the same installation procedure, but this time after the installation of the connector and reopening outlook I received a message popup. Something like: you have a privillegd account, do you want to migrate it to outlook? I pressed yes, and had to restart outlook again. only one minute later, my contacts, calendar, tasks etc. where downloaded... Now his downloading all my emails, but that's about 400MB... Did anyone else succeed?

Ps: by making your hotmail account the default email account, you will be able to synchronise with your mobile phone or PDA... (by connecting it to your pc of course. (if already installed, you may have to make a new connection)). (Be sure you have a backup first ;-) )

Good luck!

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

Drazick — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:55:39 GMT

Thanks.

The reason I asked it is I don't use Outlook, yet I have few old Outlook messages I wanna be able to see from time to time.

I thought using this feature to "Backup" them on Hotmail.

Yet as you said they won't look the same when I access them using a web browser which means it will be useless.

Thanks.

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

yanverm — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:30:48 GMT

@ drazick

hello again, I tried what you told. And apperently this doesn't work well. (never paid attention to that in the past). I made an email in outlook with different "special features" and send it to my hotmail account. The only thing that I saw from my original mail in outlook was the text, and a simplified background colour. followed by <<..>> I tried it in the webmail, and that was the same. Next I made a mail in windows live mail (desktop) with the same kind of "special futures" and that worked better: in outlook it was 100% the same, in the webmail the background was gone and the text colour set back to the default black colour...

When receiving save (html) newsletters, however, there's no difference between outlook and the webmail. They all look like the original messages.

So to answer your question; "When you log into your Hotmail account using a Web Browser, does the message looks the same?", the answer is no not realy, it doesn't look 100% the same. It depends on the "software" used, the "type" of email (html newsletter or not) and the type of "special futures"...

Greets!

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

Drazick — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:02:17 GMT

@yanverm

Thanks.

Yet it's not what I meant.

Lets say you have a message in Outlook. You got it from another Outlook user who used Outlook special features (Background for the message, picture, signature etc...).

Then you synced your Outlook with Hotmail, which means the message is now in the corresponding folder in your Hotmail folder.

When you log into your Hotmail account using a Web Browser, does the message looks the same?

I use AOL IMAP, and messages I uploaded via Outlook to my account are "Text Only" when viewed in AOL email using a Web Browser.

Thanks...

re: More on the free Outlook Connector beta and other e-mail FAQs

yanverm — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:02:18 GMT

@ Drazick

What do you mean with "outlook formatting"? If you have read it in outlook it will be marked as read in your webmail. If you delete it, it will delete the mail in the webmail etc. What doesn't get synchronised is for example: the (red or other coloured) flags. You can choose to let outlook synchronise it automatically (every 5 or 10 minutes I think), or you can do it manualy by pressing the send/receive button.

Did this information help you? greets.