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Microsoft Will Stop Supporting Windows Live Mail 2012 (office.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "Windows Live Mail 2012 users are on notice: Switch to a modern email client or lose access to any Microsoft email accounts they have," reports InfoWorld. In a Thursday blog post, Microsoft informed users of their Windows Live Mail software that "the time has come for you to upgrade to a new email application." Outlook.com is moving to a new Office 365 infrastructure which uses protocols not supported by Windows Live Mail, meaning its users "will not be able to send or receive Outlook.com email from Windows Live Mail 2012 after your account is upgraded." InfoWorld points out this affects users with email addresses ending with @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com.
The Outlook team's corporate vice president posted on the Office.com blog that "We recognize that changes like this can be difficult and apologize for any inconvenience this causes you..." adding that "we are confident that you will love the benefits and performance of the new Outlook.com," and recommending users switch to the Mail app on Windows. The Inquirer reports that Microsoft also emailed the software's users, suggesting that "If you are using Windows 7, you can upgrade to a newer version of Windows to enjoy the Mail app and the other benefits."
The Outlook team's corporate vice president posted on the Office.com blog that "We recognize that changes like this can be difficult and apologize for any inconvenience this causes you..." adding that "we are confident that you will love the benefits and performance of the new Outlook.com," and recommending users switch to the Mail app on Windows. The Inquirer reports that Microsoft also emailed the software's users, suggesting that "If you are using Windows 7, you can upgrade to a newer version of Windows to enjoy the Mail app and the other benefits."
Kind of but not really. The problem is they tried to lock people in with the Windows Live Mail app and if you are using the microsofts servers via windows live mail it forces a proprietary connection method. So the issue isn't with the server, they support all the normal basic suite of email sending and receiving methods. The problem is they tried to build a walled garden with their software 5 years ago and now don't want to support their own crap.
Of course they could release an update for windows live mail which removed the "force https stream / don't allow imap for microsoft domains" and the software would work with their server upgrades.