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Microsoft revamps Hotmail as social-friendly Outlook

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Microsoft has a really strange way of choosing names. It seems designed to create confusion. What is Outlook? Is it Outlook or Outlook Express? It now seems the answer is neither, it is now Hotmail. Similarly, there is confusion when we use the term Explorer, which can be Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer.

At least, now that I have read your article, I know what the email I received from Hotmail (Outlook?) today means. As my computer is in Japan, they assume incorrectly that I can read Japanese.

Does anyone know if Hotmail support Imap yet?

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The new look is clean and uncluttered, featuring lots of white space, reminiscent of Google’s recent makeover of Gmail. Relatively unobtrusive advertisements appear in a column to the right of the screen when looking at folders. They do not appear when a message is open.

It isn't. It's reminiscent of Microsoft's own Metro design philosophy that started with the Zune, then Windows Phone 7, then Windows 8 and outlook.com. Gmail layout, while also text heavy, is quite a different design philosophy and hardly similar, unless you consider Austin and Dickens to be similar because they both like to write really long books about morals.

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No matter what they call it Hotmail is still a spam magnet.

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Would it have been that hard to have thought of a different name for it?

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for some reason i have been switching gmail to hotmail for my main address recently though, its really ugly that the hotmail spam filter doesnt work at all and the making sort setting.. no way. MS should spend their resource to improve the system instead of changing the name.

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My very first email address was with Hotmail (the real deal, not the Microsoft owned bastard child). I thought it was amazing. Free email. Nowadays I shun them all as they feel like they're a little too interested in trying to market and sell me stuff I don't really need. It should also be painfully evident to all people that there is no such thing as free email. You're always paying something for it.

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"social-friendly" means "for people with no life" says I, a sad little man who posts comments on Japan Today. Oh well, all you guys are in the same boat :-)

But it is losing customers to Google’s Gmail, the fastest-growing rival

Who's reporting this? Ric Romero? (Refer to FARK on Wikipedia is you don't understand this)

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I use hotmail, or whatever they're going to call it now. The worst thing about it is that it refuses to work with the Outlook software. Why does Microsoft make an e-mail provider, and e-mail software, that just won't work together??? Thunderbird is fine, why not Outlook?

Oh, and the stupid freezing Hotmail does when you try to use it online is annoying.

Fix these problems before doing a silly namechange and revamp.

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iceshoecream, any mail provider is spam magnet depending on how you use your mail address. I don't get much more spam on my Hotmail than on Gmail or Yahoo.

I wonder why they say it haven't changed for the last 8 years? I find the new web interface of Hotmail very smooth (if not the best) and it is already integrated with SkyDrive and MS Office apps. So they are just trying to push something 'as new' and try to appeal - I don't see the need for it.

It is also IMAP if you use Windows Llive Mail on PC but does not let you do it with other mail clients. If they fix this it will be close to perfection!

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My old Eudora 6.2 can filter incoming mails into separate folders or forward them to other addresses according to various criteria. It can play individual sound files to notify the arrival of mails from different people. All incoming mail folders are stored as ordinary files in the Eudora directory, allowing them to backed up easily or transferred to another computer.

Can Hotlook or Outmail or whatever MS is calling it is this week do any of these things? The last time I tried Outlook a few years ago I found it finicky to set up and not very configurable. Has anything improved?

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gaijintravellerAug. 02, 2012 - 09:13AM JST

Microsoft has a really strange way of choosing names. It seems designed to create confusion. What is Outlook? Is it Outlook or Outlook Express? It now seems the answer is neither, it is now Hotmail. Similarly, there is confusion when we use the term Explorer, which can be Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer.

Outlook.com has been their corporate and educational portal for half a decade already. They are simply phasing out hotmail because it has become a hot mess.

At least, now that I have read your article, I know what the email I received from Hotmail (Outlook?) today means. As my computer is in Japan, they assume incorrectly that I can read Japanese.

You can easily change that by just selecting english as your default language and USA as your default location.

Does anyone know if Hotmail support Imap yet?

It has since about a decade ago. POP3, IMAP, and Exchange all work on hotmail/outlook very well. IMAP/Exchange for an outlook account on android phones is still a bit annoying though. Don't bother with IMAP though, exchange is so much better.

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ProbieAug. 02, 2012 - 04:57PM JST

Alphaape , I did. Just this weekend actually. I did nothing. Same old error messages. You would think that since they're made by the same company, they'd actually work together. The fact that they have am Outlook Connector itself is stupid. Why does it have problems when it's made by the same people, but with Thunderbird, a completely separate entity, works fine?

POP3, IMAP, Exchange all work fin with outlook.com, POP3 and IMAP work perfectly with hotmail. Just let it automatically find the configuration source and you are done. Or just follow the instructions on the site, has them for outlook 2000+.

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@ Probie: Not sure what else to do in your case. Could it be that you are uding it on a Japanese OS?

I've only ever used a Japanese OS. If I use an English one, I get lost. None of my other software had problems. Just Outlook.

POP3, IMAP, Exchange all work fin with outlook.com, POP3 and IMAP work perfectly with hotmail. Just let it automatically find the configuration source and you are done. Or just follow the instructions on the site, has them for outlook 2000+.

I tried everything. Didn't work for some reason or another. No idea what I was doing wrong. Anyway, I uninstalled Outlook and use Thunderbird now.

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How about first you sort out your linked email accounts feature. Can't remove a old account nor can I add a new account as my back up because apparently a confirmation link gets sent to the old account. But heres the thing that old account doesn't exist anymore. Yeah great one hotmail.......

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Many private membership sites wouldn't accept registrations that have Hotmail addresses. It's become such a spam originator that they just outright not want anything to do with it.

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I used HM for years, then all of a sudden I was blocked from my account, MS would unlock my account only if registered to something I didn't bother to read what it was. I simply changed to Gmail. Nice way to win subscribers, MS. Gmail also needs a revamp: it's ugly, does not filter spams.

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AlanAug. 02, 2012 - 11:08AM JST

My old Eudora 6.2 can filter incoming mails into separate folders or forward them to other addresses according to various criteria. It can play individual sound files to notify the arrival of mails from different people. All incoming mail folders are stored as ordinary files in the Eudora directory, allowing them to backed up easily or transferred to another computer.

Can Hotlook or Outmail or whatever MS is calling it is this week do any of these things? The last time I tried Outlook a few years ago I found it finicky to set up and not very configurable. Has anything improved?

Eudora is a desktop client, hotmail/outlook.com are web clients. And yes, outlook.com can sort your mail using the same filters as Outlook desktop client (which had those features since at least 2000, probably before), and also has sounds. Not sure if it can select sounds by criteria like the outlook desktop client though, but you shouldn't compare a web app to a desktop client by that criteria anyway.

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AmidalismAug. 02, 2012 - 10:26AM JST

Would it have been that hard to have thought of a different name for it?

They are simply merging outlook.com with hotmail accounts. Outlook.com has been around for a long while, and microsoft is simply doing some cleanup work.

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@ Probie: You probably need to download the latest Outlook Connector to allow your outlook to log into your hotmail.

Alphaape , I did. Just this weekend actually. I did nothing. Same old error messages. You would think that since they're made by the same company, they'd actually work together. The fact that they have am Outlook Connector itself is stupid. Why does it have problems when it's made by the same people, but with Thunderbird, a completely separate entity, works fine?

I use a Win7 64bit Japanese OS- fully updated, and with the newest Outlook; and it just won't work with my Live account.

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*it did nothing.

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So will those of us who use Hotmail need to create a new email account?

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Stupid M$ pissed off all their long time Hotmail users to Gmail. Hotmail became harder and hard to use with M$ Outlook and by the end you couldn't open a new account that could be used from within M$ Outlook. I got rid of all my Hotmail accounts and told everyone I knew to do like wise and switch to Gmail. I can since day one get all my e-mail from Gmail in M$ Outlook so why would I go back to a STUPID NARROW MINDED company that thinks that because I am in Japan I MUST SPEAK AND READ JAPANESE BY DEFAULT?!? Piss off M$ as you still haven't learned your lesson yet!!

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The worst thing about it is that it refuses to work with the Outlook software.

@ Probie: You probably need to download the latest Outlook Connector to allow your outlook to log into your hotmail. I wish they would just go back to Outlook Express. If they made things simpler, I think more people would stick with them vice adding all of the "bells and whistles" that they seem to be doing.

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it did nothing

@ Probie: Not sure what else to do in your case. Could it be that you are uding it on a Japanese OS?

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