What's the difference between Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and MSN Hotmail?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

That one of the world's most influential companies in the history of Earth would allow such a chaos of names to evolve is astonishing and perplexing. What the heck?!

Not only is it perplexing, but it's comedic -- if I was reading a novel, and the author had written this in the book, I would have thought it hilarious, but I would have also thought "There's no way a real company in the real world would ever do that!"

So its kind of surreal this naming scheme they've come up with -- it's like something right out of a slapstick comedy.

I really hope that Microsoft uses some of their resources to greatly enhance and improve marketing and public relations. They need up the "hip" and "cool" factor by a few notches.

I might now be a minority in saying this, but I really think Microsoft makes amazing products. For example, I've been running Windows-XP Media Edition as my kitchen TV now for years, and it has performed flawlessly. All my friends who have seen it say, "How come I don't know about this? Why doesn't Microsoft advertise these media features?"

Also, my entire office runs on MS-Server-2003, and there are networking features that I simply couldn't easily configure with anything else.

So Microsoft is a great company -- but I'm worried that Microsoft's pace in alienating the public, and digging its own downfall with things like this naming convention is accelerating.

Too bad.

Aw Leo - let's just go back to WzMail on Xenix! Let's see, what was the name of that server? Kermit? Piggy? Gonzo?

Windows live Mail is no longer Beta. I have the update from Windows, that made it no longer beta.

And there was a time when what is now called Windows Live Hotmail was called simply Windows Live Mail, but then they decided to rename Windows Live Mail (beta) to Windows Live Hotmail (beta). Now the service is out of beta, and the current Windows Live Mail is not the same as what they originally used the name for!

I guess we are lucky that Microsoft hasn't tried to trademark the term "email". :-)

To split hairs even further Windows Live Hotmail is called exactly that on the log in page but when you arrive at your inbox page it says simply Windows Live.

THanks for this article. I though I was in early stages of Alheimers. LOL

don

I installed Windows XP sp2 and IE7. My Outlook Express ceased working so I took your suggestion and installed Windows Live Mail and Messenger to replace the Outlook Express. Looked great until I tried to send an email. It defaults to my hotmail address and won't allow me to send mail from my shawmail address. However, both hotmail and shawmail appear on the page and both are accepting incoming emails. Do you know how I can send shawmail from windows live mail? Thanks for your assistance....you are a great resource!

hello,
after installing vista , i was in deliema whether to use windows mail, or windows live mail as my default. but finally decided to switch to windows live mail since it is more updated than windows mail and secondry it provides more facilities

I was also at a confusing stand point on whether to use Mail of Live Mail as a default. In the end I decided to use live mail for some of the same reasons listed above. More options and etc.

Windows mail is sometime supported by antivirus (ex bitdender), but windows live mail (like windows live messenger) is not (except for the antivirus features offered within it by microsoft). This sucks big time.

To post a comment on "What's the difference between Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and MSN Hotmail?", please return to that article's main page.