Configuring Hotmail Support in Microsoft Outlook 2000 (IMO)

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Converting Messages and Calendar or Address books

Configuring Hotmail Support in Outlook 2000 (IMO)

In some cases, it is possible to access a Hotmail Inbox in Outlook 2000 in Internet Mail Only mode with Office Service Release 1/1a applied. This page describes how to set up the Hotmail account in Outlook Express, then export the account settings to Outlook. NOTE: This is an unsupported hack that works for some people; if it doesn't work for you, no information is available to explain why not.

Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2003 include Hotmail support, with paid Hotmail or MSN accounts.

An alternative for Hotmail access in Outlook 2000 and 98 is to use IzyMail or Web2Pop.

Setup | Limitations | Notes | More Information

Setup

Follow these steps to configure the Hotmail account in Outlook Express, then export it to Outlook 2000:

In Outlook Express, choose Tools | Accounts, and add a new mail account to access your Hotmail account. If you do not already have a free Hotmail account, you can use Tools | New Account Signup | Hotmail.
In the Accounts dialog box, select the Hotmail account, and then click Export to save the account settings as an .iaf file.
In Outlook 2000, choose Tools | Accounts and click Import to import the account settings file you exported in Step 2.

This places a Hotmail - Inbox icon on the Outlook Bar. In the folder list, you will see a separate hierarchy for Hotmail, with the Bulk Mail, Deleted Items, Inbox and Sent Items folders, plus any additional folders that you created in your Hotmail mailbox.

Limitations

You cannot send via your Hotmail account using Outlook 2000. You must use one of your regular POP or IMAP accounts. You could, of course, set the reply address for a POP account to use your Hotmail e-mail address.

You won't get any notification when new items are available in your Hotmail account. Plan to use Tools | Download occasionally to get new items. Or just click on the regular Outlook Inbox, then back on the Hotmail Inbox to update the view with new items.

If you right-click on one of the Hotmail folders, Outlook will crash. Don't expect this to be fixed, since Hotmail is officially unsupported in Outlook 2000. Just don't do it!

Exporting from a Hotmail folder to a PST file sometimes generates errors. If you want to archive Hotmail messages, you may have better luck dragging them to a folder in a PST file.

Notes

Outlook automatically adds the Download State column to the view for Hotmail folders so you can tell which items are available when you are working offline. Items marked with the full document sheet are stored offline. Items marked with the half sheet are stored as headers only.

If you are working online, simply selecting a message will download it automatically.

You can also use the commands on the Tools | Download menu to get headers, all items or selected items.

The Hotmail account offline data is stored in a Personal Folders .pst file named Hotmail-###.pst, where ### represents a number automatically assigned by Outlook. The file should be in the usual location for your operating system. If you remove the Hotmail account, Outlook automatically deletes the PST file.

If you convert Outlook from Internet Mail Only to Corporate/Workgroup mode, Outlook does not migrate the Hotmail account settings, but it does leave the Hotmail-###.pst file intact. You can open it with the File | Open | Outlook Data File command.