Guide Review - Outlook Hotmail Connector
If you don't like the Windows Live Hotmail web interface so much and don't care for Windows Live Mail, maybe you'd like to access your Windows Live Hotmail account in Outlook?
With Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector, this is a breeze. The plug-in works with Windows Live Hotmail and Office Live Mail accounts, and plug them in it does!
After a few somewhat arcane steps in an ancient interface got you past the setup (Outlook Hotmail Connector can also detect if you set up a Windows Live Hotmail using the "old" HTTP interface and might offer to take over), your accounts will behave as if they were local.
Mail and contacts appear just where and how they should. If you have a Windows Live Hotmail Plus subscription, the same goes for online calendars, notes and to-do items as well.
Even when you are offline, you can read mail already downloaded, move items, edit contacts and calendars or compose mail. Once you go online, Outlook Hotmail Connector uploads your changes. Do make sure you don't forget to make Outlook deliver mail you sent. While you can change whether Outlook Hotmail Connector should download complete emails or just headers, this is a global setting and cannot be modified per folder.
If something is not quite right, Outlook Hotmail Connector lets you know via its toolbar and a log file, which is crude but, it seems, reasonably helpful.
(Updated October 2011)
