Outlook Express & Hotmail

The other week I thought to myself how nice it would be to hae all my e-mails in one place so I proceeded to configure my Outlook Express to do just that. Easy enough right? six e-mails, one program, create accounts, download mail... easy right? WRONG!

I tried to enter the hotmail e-mail addresses only to get an erro that said that hotmail was no longer accessibly through OE. I proceeded to check the msn site and sure enough they discontinued support unless you have a paid membership. A paid membership is apparently $29.95 USD a year, which isn't too bad, but I have 3 accounts so that's about $100 CDN a year just to use a program I've been using for free for at least 10 years. I figured there had to be an easier way...
http://join.msn.com/Hotmailplus/overview-std

I scoured the web and found a neat little program called FreePOPs. You install this program set the incoming to localhost and outgoing port to 2000 and Voila you can check your hotmail!
http://www.freepops.org/en/

I was of course thrilled. My excitement lasted about a week and a half, just long enough for me to archive my hotmail, transfer my address book and set up folders in OE, essentially get myself all settled and WHAM just like that I get a 0x800CCC92 error in OE. basically invalid username/password combo!
http://freepops.diludovico.it/p26356-16-06-2006-23%3A02%3A28.html#p26356

I find out that hotmail has found out about the little program and has set up security pages on their site that are apparently casuing this error. I go to the programs site and after scouring message boards there is a patch. I install the patch and re-run the program only to get a 0x800CCC91 which is a bad socket error. I check all ports, all sockets, check the router, re-set the tcp/ip stack. re-install OE and still no success. :(
http://freepops.diludovico.it/viewtopic.php?id=4216&p=3
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/help/email/oe_errors_0x800ccc0e.html

Back to the drawing board... I go back to the programs website and although there is much discussion on the topic there is not a solution. I try to install another suggested patch and now Windows is giving me script error and .dll file not found errors! I am not impressed!

So in short I, as of yet, have no solution save for buying the hotmail account, which I may yet do. I figure if I can forward all of one to another then I can only use one e-mail address... but that is a whole other adventure (seems hotmail doesn't allow mail forwarding either!!)

Oh and gmail was able to be routed through OE without a hitch, they even have mail forwarding in their options!!!
http://www.blonnet.com/ew/2005/02/21/stories/2005022100280400.htm

Also for any of you that read this and say to themselves... "I can check my hotmail fine through my OE." I have an answer for you too (as this came up when I brought up the inital dilemma with my colleagues.) Hotmail has a grandfather clause in their user agreement that (for now at least) any hotmail account configued in OE prior to like 2004 will not be de-activiated from using it! So even though I've had my account since (does math in head....) probably 1995 since I never configured it in OE. I'm SOL!! That does not seem fair!!

Although as an aside... I did figure out how to back up OE in it's entirety! LOL


If anyone has any suggestions please let me know!