Get ready to move from Hotmail to Outlook

If you use Hotmail then you may already know that you are moving to Outlook.com. You may not want to, but you are -- unless you plan to scrap the whole thing and head over to Gmail, Yahoo mail or another service. Microsoft officially launched Outlook overnight, but the service beta debuted six months ago; we reviewed here already.

So, to help users along in this moving process, the company posted a question and answer page appropriately titled "My Hotmail account was upgraded to Outlook.com".

The page is pretty simple -- only nine questions and a video. However, there is quite a bit of information included and numerous links to additional details, like settings, POP3, Contacts, existing mail and more.

Microsoft attempts to address some of the fear and questions that customers will almost certainly have. Things like "Do I have to get a new email address?" and "Why can't I switch back to Hotmail?" All valid questions that longtime Hotmail users will face in the coming months.

Give the company some credit for attempting to help its customers here, but killing off services, while a natural process in this industry, is never easy. It almost always results in some unhappy people and, frequently they are the more vocal ones. For instance my recent posts about the death of my beloved Live Mesh -- yes I am still bitter. But, I have learned to move on, which is what Hotmail customers will need to do as well.

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