wells39 said:
This morning my Outlook email client worked, then all of a sudden it wouldn't
let me into my MSN account. But I could get into my account using another
computer, using the web, and using Windows Live email. How can I get my
Outlook back in shape?
Cutoff for DAV access to Hotmail ends on September 1, 2009. Microsoft
is switching to Deltasync as their HTTP communications protocol to their
webmail service. E-mail clients that support only DAV for HTTP access
will no longer be able to use it to access Hotmail. Your choices after
the cutoff are:
- Use a POP e-mail client to access your Hotmail account.
- Use a Deltasync-enable client to see all the folders in your webmail
account.
- Use the webmail interface that has always been there even before
Microsoft bought Hotmail.
POP has no concept of folders. It only understands a mailbox where ALL
your e-mails reside. Because POP doesn't use folders, there are no
commands within the Post Office Protocol to navigate or select folders.
It only has access to your mailbox. The mailbox that POP can access is
the Inbox folder you see when using the webmail client to your account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/pop_basics.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/how_pop_works.htm
Hotmail has never had and still doesn't have IMAP access. IMAP lets you
access other folders in your e-mail account (or, more accurately, those
folders to which you have subscribed). Microsoft has hinted that they
may make IMAP access possible in the future but no Hotmail user is going
to pend using their account until if and whenever IMAP access shows up.
The only way to have local access to the non-Inbox folders in your
Hotmail account is to use Deltasync (DAV support dies on Sept 1). This
protocol makes available all your folders that you defined using either
the Deltasync-enabled e-mail client (which then replicates that local
folder on the server) or syncs to those folders you created using the
webmail client. If you want IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account,
you'll need to use either the webmail interface, a local e-mail client
that supports Deltasync, which are:
- Windows Live Mail (replaces Outlook Express and Vista's Windows Mail).
- Outlook 2003/2007 *plus* the Outlook Connector add-on. The add-on
adds Deltasync support since no version of Outlook natively supports
Deltasync. The add-on doesn't work with prior versions of Outlook.
There are some screen scraper proxies or clients that will try to
navigate the web pages that makeup the webmail interface for Hotmail.
That is, they are coded to walk through the Hotmail web site. They act
like a local POP-to-HTTP proxy. You configure a POP account in your
e-mail client that connects to this protocol converter proxy that then
uses HTTP to walk through the Hotmail web site. They aren't reliable.
FreePOPs, YahooPOPs (for use with Yahoo Mail only), and Thunderbird with
its Webmail proxy are such types of screen-scraper clients. If the
webmail interface changes then these screen-scraper clients will fail.
You cannot get your e-mails using them until their author gets around to
making their web-walking code match the changes to the web site. Since
they provide POP access through their converter proxy, you only get
access to your mailbox (which is the Inbox folder shown in the webmail
client). Since you use POP to connect to the protocol converter proxy,
you won't get IMAP or Deltasync access to the other folders available in
the webmail client. Since Hotmail, even for free accounts, has POP
access, there is no point in using a screen scraper to access Hotmail.
