Hotmail and live.com

[Knight]

As some may have noticed recently when you goto hotmail the url would change to login.live.com ...
I've been curious about that for the past month, at first I thought it was hijacked so dug into it and was following the reasons and the beta testing of this so called 'new service' that allows multiusers or the same user to switch easily between .net passports and MSN accounts. If you're only using the browser InternetExplore (IE) you probably wont have hit the issues across other browsers like Firefox and Opera which basically, wont log you into your email and a few other areas.
The live.com project at the moment is not supporting other browsers - they dropped the support while rushing to get this going, now standard Opera and a test from one of my other PCs with Firefox fails login at the HTTPS/certificate - meaning all I'm getting is a dead link whereas IE logs in with no problem.
It's a pain, and a royal one at that too, because I don't use MSN Messenger either but Trillian to connect to the Messenger service with Opera as the link catcher and default email browser ... so I had to spend the last hour customising some settings to force it all to work, its not perfect but it'll do.
Generally, not pleased as I use Hotmail regularly and I dislike being forced into using IE and other MS only products. I've had my Hotmail account long before it was ever an MS holding and I figure it highly annoying with all these so called little updates and 'features' essentially streamlining my choice of preference on which software I use - for me it is just another way of streaming ads, spyware and other bloat and entirely complicating a simple service that never needed fixed... but anyway, just thought I'd mention that to people here, mainly the non-IE based users in case they couldn't connect to their Hotmail and didn't know what was happening.

[Andrew MacLean]

Knight

Thank you for that. I have the same problem, using Safari.

I get round the problem by not trying to access hotmail direct from MSN Messenger. What I do is click the mail link in the messenger panel, then, when the window goes crazy, I shut the window altogether and open a new one. by this time my computer has logged on to Hotmail, I go to my bookmarks menu and proceed to hotmail's homepage and then follow the mail link.

It is a tiresome and roundabout way of getting to my eMail, but I'd rather do this than use IE, I like Safari.

I am garetful to you for letting those of us know that this impacts on people who understand computers as well as thouse who do not.

Andrew

[GarethB]

When I log in to hotmail I periodically get an option to try the beta version, so far I have said no and experienced zero problems.

[Knight]

GB what browser/version you use?

[Sweet]

I hate hotmail and MSN for all the junk i get and MSN is annoying with all the 'inside MSN' boxes that appear when you log in. Dam just keep it simple i only want to talk to someone!!! I do get beta links though with yahoo but i haven't joined.

Sweet X x X

[GarethB]

Knight,

At work it is bog standard explorer and at home it is the BT based system.

I do not know if it is based on explorer or netscape but it did have elements of both until I updated it last night to get 3MB broadband which should go up to 8MB in the near future.

Still had no MSN/Hotmail problems other than hotmail permanently has the search/find function on when I use it at home.

[jayuk]

Knight

Not sure why you are having those issues...I ONLY use Firefox for all browsing etc....and havent had any issues?..OR do you mean when you select Links within the IM's from Trillian that IE launches ?

J

[Knight]

ahh, I am pretty sure BT is based on IE as well so you wont really have seen a problem.
Normally, I wouldn't have bothered even posting this but within the space of something like 10hours and zero system changes I couldn't access my emails via opera or firefox ... a couple of friends called me bc I'm apparently supposed to know lol... so for this - I wont get all tech again yet this is what I found out...

source:
http://spaces.msn.com/livecom/

Opera 9 support
Our goal it make Windows Live the best homepage experience on any browser... We've been working with the Opera folks and are happy to announce that now you can enjoy live.com on Opera 9 ...

I updated but it didn't work right away...

firefox support added
live.com is now functional in firefox (we told you it was coming soon ) ... note there's a minor bug in search results where the search tabs look strange but are functional - that'll be fixed soon too.

I updated firefox as well, but it didn't work right away either.

I'm told it was a temp server side issue that had a wide impact for other browser users, it appears to be fixed to a large extent now but it is an evolving project and imo there's some misinformation out and about as to whats happening.
So far, I've tested the browsers again and they're working but I wouldn't be surprised if it fails again at some point over the next week perhaps but its nice to know its not a problem 'our ends' and I hope that helps anyone who hit the same issues...

[John Smith]

Isn't it odd... that this palava is owned by Microsoft, who are intent on going down the standard route

These days it's pretty tricky to write web pages that only work in IE. They must be trying pretty hard then!