Hotmail did allow OE on nearly all their servers, but have fairly recently decided that only those with "charter accounts" with MSN and those who pay for a Hotmail "super account" will be permitted to use OE. All others are being migrated to new servers that are incompatible with OE. Even the charter MSN accounts have been switched to new servers that won't download your messages except as temps. They stay on the server unless you move them to a "local folder" and delete them from the "Hotmail/MSN" folder.

A lot of the problems that people have had with Hotmail in the last year or so are because they don't seem to be able to make the server switches very gracefully - hence the "they never answer your email, but the service comes back." ...sometimes 2 or 3 times a week.

The termination of accounts inactive for more than 30 days has been the rule for a couple of years now, but may not have been enforced too stringently until recently. It does appear that it's being enforced pretty regularly now. It gives them a chance to shut off your free one and try to coerce you into one of the paid accounts when you try to get restored.

Anyone using Hotmail who hasn't been reading all the "super offers" they send periodically should go to the msn.com|Hotmail link above and check out the FAQ. They've probably already hurt you in ways you don't know about.

"If your email doesn't work, send us an email. We promise to reply by email within 24 hours."

Am I missing something here?

John