Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

In the last week, I've experienced extremely slow performance from Hotmail. I'm talking about five minutes between clicking an email message header and getting the actual message.

One day it occured to me: "I'll bet MS is trying to run Hotmail on Windows NT/2K again!" Sure enough, when I checked Netcraft to find out what Hotmail was running on, it was IIS 5.0/Win2K.

MS bashers like me have always made fun of the fact that Microsoft can't even run its own Hotmail on Windows. Traditionally, it's been run on BSD, which runs like a champion. Microsoft has tried quietly migrating Hotmail to Windows numerous times, and always failed. It's just not robust enough (I'm not talking about desktop users who say "I hasn't crashed on me in four months!" I'm talking about using Win2K for serious load capacities).

I've had enough. Now I'm faced with the task of migrating from Hotmail to some other account. Has anyone else had this problem?

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

Well, my Hotmail account has not slowed down, but I am thinking about going to a POP3 account as my main account. The only problem is that I don' think that I can get my new e-mail out to all the people who need it. Instead of giving out my phone I give e-mail, so this is going to be a large project.
Tell me how it works for you.
BEN

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

If you're not having problems with Hotmail, you can still switch to using a POP account. You can configure Hotmail to receive mail on your POP3 server, with the option of either deleting messages directly through Hotmail or leaving copies on the POP server.

But you'll have to slowly wean yourself off of Hotmail. I don't know of an elegant way of letting everyone know you've switched. Maybe there's a "send all" option similar to the "reply all" that bulk emails everyone in your Hotmail's address book. If not, send yourself a blank email and "reply all" to it, with a message to "all" that you've moved to a new account.

I haven't had any Hotmail slowdowns since this morning. Maybe I'll hang in there and see what happens. Otherwise I'll use my Sprint PCS account, which I can access from a PC on the web or my cell phone.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney Australia
Posts: 1883

related to this topic, do you guys use MSN instand messenger?
I cannot connect to it since yesterday and I was wondering if my company changed the firewall or that the MSN IM service is down....

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 80

I have an idea.

I've used this idea for the last 11 years.

About 11 years ago when the net qas just starting to gear up, I got an email forwarder address. It isn't actually an email account but more of a vanity account thing that forwards your mail to an account of your choosing.

So i've had the same "email address" for 11 years, even though I have had multiple email accounts. It's pretty cool. If I worry about long term, I just give the person my email forward, and they can send me email just like normal, no matter where I move my account to!

You all should look into it.

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

ToolKit- I just had a chat on MSN IM service(first one in about 3 months), so I can verify that it works.

Lacitus- Where would I get one of these accounts. I'm intrested in that, maybe exactly what I need.
BEN

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

quote:

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Originally posted by ToolkiT related to this topic, do you guys use MSN instand messenger?
I cannot connect to it since yesterday and I was wondering if my company changed the firewall or that the MSN IM service is down

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Registered: May 2000
Location:
Posts: 209

quote:

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Originally posted by BEN
ToolKit- I just had a chat on MSN IM service(first one in about 3 months), so I can verify that it works.

Lacitus- Where would I get one of these accounts. I'm intrested in that, maybe exactly what I need.
BEN

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney Australia
Posts: 1883

quote:

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Originally posted by Gameboy70

quote:

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Originally posted by ToolkiT related to this topic, do you guys use MSN instand messenger?
I cannot connect to it since yesterday and I was wondering if my company changed the firewall or that the MSN IM service is down

---

I haven't had any problems with MSN IM.

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Do files get embarrassed when they get unzipped?

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: St. Louis
Posts: 308

I use my ISP email account for almost everything now, I still realy like yahoo mail. Yahoo, has 6 megs of webstorage, for free, and if you want to buy more you can, the Web option of the account works prey well and it's far better than anything hotmail has ever had. and on top of if all you can easly check yahoo mail on your pop3 client.

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 144

Well, I guess sooner or later all hotmail users will have to think about an alternative. I just read (I forgot where, but I think it was in a German newspaper) that Microsoft plans to charge hotmail users for the email service. (I hope it was not a hoax, but normally the German papers are quite reliable.

Has anyboday else heard about this?

mc9

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

I haven't heard about charging for hotmail, and while their FAQ states: "Hotmail is free because it is advertiser supported. Hotmail will always be a free service." -- there is always a possibility of them implimenting a tiered pricing structure -- ie, free but very limited or pay a small fee and get current level functionaility..

Joe

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

Well, If I have to pay for my Hotmail service then I'm dropping it. I don't care how hard it would be to change my address with all my contacts, but paying for Microsoft service is a waste of money. Anyways, I want a true POP3 account even if it cost a little more.
BEN