MSN/Windows Live Hotmail upgrade danger for HTTPMail access?

Posted by Jonathan on September 8th, 2007 filed in Hotmail, Microsoft

As reported in The Register Hotmail is upgrading us all to a shiny new MSN Live Hotmail.

And, no, you don’t get a choice.  Microsoft is generously offering to upgrade automatically me in the near future so I gave in and upgraded today.  At least this gives me a chance to deal with fallout over the weekend rather than hitting problems receiving critical emails during the week. 

Since I have had a paid Hotmail account for years I have been using Outlook Express to access my online Hotmail folders directly (OE sets up easily – it already knows how to connect to Hotmail once you select HTTP server for a new account).  As such I rarely use the web interface.

I had looked for guidance as to whether the upgrade impacted HTTP support but found none.  Yeah, sure it works with Outlook but I don’t care – all my personal email is managed through OE.  Well, the good news is – it does still work.  Seamlessly – I had to change nothing – upgraded and kept going.  Thanks Microsoft – you didn’t screw me today.

Of course I did try out the new interface.  I like it (on broadband) – it’s fast, it introduces context sensitive right click functionality (less clicks per operation) and even up-down keys work on the Inbox.