Outlook Express to finally end access to Hotmail

Yesterday an e-mail was sent out from the Windows Live Mail Team announcing that Outlook Express would be dropping the legacy DAV protocol on June 30 2008, severing access to the Hotmail Inbox from Outlook Express.

Users are encouraged by the team to download Windows Live Mail as Outlook Express' free replacement. Live Mail replaces Distributed Authoring and Versioning with Microsoft's proprietary DeltaSynch protocol, which detects changes in the e-mail server, allowing the client to only download the changes, instead of all the headers in every folder as DAV does.

Microsoft's cessation of DAV support has actually been a known issue for several years, as users of Windows XP SP2 running Outlook Express have long received the error message: "Hotmail no longer allows email access via Outlook Express for free Hotmail/MSN accounts." Users of Outlook 2003 and 2007 were encouraged to download Microsoft Office Outlook Connector to connect to their Hotmail inboxes.

It now appears the best option is simply to upgrade to the new client.

Live Mail is, of course, closely tied to Microsoft's Windows Live suite of tools, allowing Live Messenger conversations directly from the inbox, and immediate jumps to Live Spaces blogs.