Vista - Fed Up - Alternatives to Windows Live Mail? Thanks

I'm tired of each day a new bug with Windows Live Mail.
Even this discussion group from a window that is too narrow and like many
places in Microsoft's software, difficult to expand, for no known reason.
ALmost every other software manufacturer allows your input window to be
easily, EASILY, expanded horizontally.

Even signing in to this group:

"Firefox can't find the server at cpmsftibpro01.dns.microsoft.com."

Always something. Something sneaky. Something to screw up Firefox. Nice.

Now the latest bug. I keep an IMAP account for old emails. The account is
not active. But what does Windows Live Mail do? It pulls messages from over a
year ago and puts them in the "Unread e-mail" or puts thing at a stop asking
for a Login to an account that does is not active.

It's annoying and clogs things up because I am asked for a login in to a
dormant account. And it's sneaky. The account is set up to NOT be
synchronized in any way. So where is Live Mail gettings its commands to look
into this account?

I never had these problems with Outlook Express.

And the problems with IMAP and the above LOGIN surfaced after I put in a
Hotmail account instead of the Live POP3 account. So some connection there.
And I had to put in the Hotmail account with the Hotmail servers because the
stupid POP3 account was pulling in 10000 spurious, non-existing messages
every single time I tried to SYNCH it up.

It's too much hassle.

So tell me of a good email server that is clean and dependable.

GMAIL? YAHOO never gave me problems. I have used IMAP POP3 and Hotmail and
YAHOO and things going back to a VAX and unix and never these idiot level
problems - as I like to call them. Never. And I mean NEVER.

And at this point, it does not have to be free. I will pay for a clean,
email account that works well.

Any suggestions? I don't care about portability, just messages that remain
on the server and none of these problems above.

Thanks, enjoy the Labor Day Weekend,

AdamMail

Unfortunately for me (and I guess others who want to access their Hotmail
accounts without going through the web portal), there appears to be no
alternative to Windows Live Mail if you are attempting to replicate the
operation and design of Outlook Express. I have experienced many of the
frustrations which you mention (and then some), and based on the feedback I
have been reading here for the past several weeks, we are not alone.


"AdamMail" <AdamMail@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1B87D29A-83F4-40CC-BAA3-107F2AF5E80B@xxxxxx

On Sun, 6 Sep 2009 10:30:01 -0700, AdamMail wrote:
I have no trouble grabbing the border of any window in Windows, and dragging
it out to expand the window. It works just as easily for window borders in
Windows XP as it does for window borders with the X11 windows in Knoppix.
But it is an OS thing, not an application thing.
Where did you find that host name? All I get for it is:

| 09/06/09 16:58:33 dns cpmsftibpro01.dns.microsoft.com
| No data of requested type
| (Host doesn't exist - try Dig for MX record)

Firefox opens this server nicely:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/

I can even see your post here:

<http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.live.mail.desktop&tid=1b87d29a-83f4-40cc-baa3-107f2af5e80b&cat=en_US_0405EAE1-3A5E-559F-59E6-B48513D5B57E&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1>

It isn't Windows Live screwing up Firefox. Something else is afoot. And, in
any case, that is a browser issue, not a Windows Live Mail issue.
What is the point of this exercise? Old email messages should be stored in
the "Storage" folders, not in a dormant email account.
The only suggestion I can offer is click on the "Feedback" line in the
"Help" menu.
The world changes. Used to be able to start a car without worrying about a
solenoid failing.
How about a mail client, instead. What you are experiencing seems to be
WLMail issues, not server issues. Try Mozilla Thunderbird. Except that you
will have to go back to using POP3 with T-Bird and Hotmail. Unless somebody
has cobbled together an unsupported (by MS) HTTPMail plugin which works
(iffy proposition) with T-Bird.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

"N. Miller" wrote:
No can do with the Reply window. Have to trick it with a bigger font. I like
Knoppix and almost any other application but junk I find from Microsoft
allows the windows to be stretched. I though that was the point of Windows is
to do windows.
The point was the university killed the IMAP account. Why? To save money
because it was probably cheaper to force us to use Live.Com account. I used
to use storage folders but when Outlook Express combined all the Live.com
accounts into one big slop of an account, it wiped out my storage folders. I
don' t know what happened to them.

I did not do anything but watch my email accounts go nuts between Outlook
Express and Windows Dead Mail.

So I just keep the IMAP account in Outlook Express which is not dormant with
dormant accounts. Maybe it will work out fine.


It's also a server issue I believe. I watched my Sent mail in the hotmail on
the web not being fully populated. I'm not sure now. It was sure depressing
to see all the UNKNOWNS instead of the TO being filled out. A real drag if
I'm trying to find an email I sent to someone and all I see are hundreds of
Unknowns. It's not just a client problem. It's Microsoft being slap happy
since there is no real competition here.

I'm not kidding. I go to Hotmail.com and redirected to Live.com and in the
SENT folders, I see hundreds of (Unknown).

Now that has nothing to do with the client since I am using a browser and
mail.live.com. Grrrrrrrr. That's a server mistake since the TO for the SENT
is populated in the emails. It is not missing. It can't be as a general rule.

Thanks for your replies. They were helpful. I suspect you're wrong here
about this being a client issue. Well, a little bit wrong.

On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 03:32:01 -0700, AdamMail wrote:
Windows Live Mail reply window stretches just fine, here. I can't find an
application window that I can't stretch in Windows XP MCE 2005; SP3.

<snip>
MS Outlook Express has, "Local Folders", and used to access HTTPMail
accounts using WebDAV, creating a separate folder structure for each such
account. As of Sept. 1, 2009, Windows Live accounts no longer use WebDAV for
HTTPMail, and MS Outlook Express access to same is dead.

It sounds like you converted your 'live.com' accounts to POP3; and what you
see is a consequence of the manner in which POP3 operates.
If the IMAP account is no longer functional, keeping the server settings in
place is rather pointless. There is nothing there to synchronize with.
Matters not if you are using Windows Live Mail, or MS Outlook Express. A
dead IMAP account is pretty useless.

In MS Outlook Express, using rules, I can sort between two Hotmail accounts.
Rules easily move email from "Account A" to a Local Folder labeled, "Account
A", and email from "Account B" is moved to a Local Folder labeled, "Account
B". In fact, I have created a sub folder under each, labeled, "Inbox", and
have the downloaded email from one account moved to, "Account A; Inbox", and
email from the other account moved to, "Account B; Inbox".

In Windows Live Mail, each account, whether POP3, IMAP, or HTTPMail (uses
DeltaSync, not WebDAV) have separate folder structures. But a dead IMAP
account is damned useless; the messages should have been move to the "Local
Folders" tree (MS Outlook Express), or the "Storage folders" tree (Windows
Live Mail) as soon as the word was put out that the account was going to be
history.

<snip>
If you changed to the POP3 access for Hotmail, you need to remember: POP3
does not synchronize to the server, it only downloads the Inbox. Any mail
sent using the SMTP server only goes to the local "Sent Items" folder, not
to the server "Sent Items" folder. I am guessing you are used to the way
Windows Live (formerly MSN) accounts worked under WebDAV in MSOE, and to the
way IMAP works. And POP3 is confusing the hell out of you because it doesn't
work the same way.

And dead IMAP accounts shouldn't have been set up at all; if the servers no
longer are responsive, there is nothing to synchronize to, and the client
goes berserk trying (I don't know why WLMail tries to synchronize when it
isn't set to, but I see that it does; and if the servers aren't responsive,
then things will fall apart fast). Sooooo ......

Don't use POP3 for your 'live.com' accounts, unless you are willing to
accept the quirks of POP3. Set them up in WLMail as HTTPMail accounts (they
still work because Windows Live has changed to using "DeltaSync" instead of
"WebDAV", and, unlike MSOE, WLMail does understand "DeltaSync"). And, if
your email from the IMAP accounts is still available locally, move the
messages out of the account folders into either "Local Folders" (MSOE), or
"Storage folders" (WLMail). Then delete the non-functional IMAP accounts.
The servers aren't there, any more, so there is no way to try and store
those messages online. It is just not possible with the servers gone.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

It's not replicating the operation and design of OE but of WebDAV use in OE(similar WebDAV use in OL03)


--
...winston
ms-mvp mail

"Geo Scotto" <none@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:unPBF40LKHA.1280@xxxxxx