My Windows Live Hotmail account won't close, what do I do?

I have a couple of email addresses that I've "closed" that is I stopped using them. I do, however, check them aoout once a month because a couple of times I've received an email from a long lost friend whom I hadn't contacted about my change of address who wrote me at that "closed" address. If you don't feel like logging on to that address you can add that acct to your email client and click on it periodically and comb through the spam and possibly find a valuable email.

If an email account is closed, the email service provider will eventually allow someone else to choose that user name (the name that appears to the the left of the @ sign.) Even if your user name is unique, there's always the possibility that someone else will apply for and receive that name. Personally, I'm paranoid enough to not want someone else "impersonating" me. So as suggested, just stop using the email account but check it periodically for incoming mail.

but i don't use or want MSN, Hotmail, Messenger, or Windows Live. yet when i tried to remove windows live, NOTHING would run, so i had to restore to a previous date. i'm using a wimpy laptop w/o much juice, & all this sneaky windows crap that gets loaded on surreptitiously results in a very slow machine.

SUPER, Leo, just yesterday I was "complaining" (lower case "c") that I thought I had closed my Hotmail account and then found to my surprise that it still existed. NO problem; I agree 100% with you. Thanks for the excellent answer and PERFECT Timing!

In my case the email is of no concequence, its the other crap that occurs. The other crap?, the automatic MSN butterflies that appear in the FAVORITES tool bar everey month. How do I get rid of it?????

Microsoft will gather some data most of it useless from keeping the account open. The agreement that you signed electronically by pushing "I agree" will stay. You just have to wait for the EU to slam them with another privacy violation. Best is to uninstall or block as much as possible of Microsoft products to plug some information that my leak that way. It is a matter of trust.

What's wrong with Hotmail? I receive a lot less spam with their service. With Yahoo!, I receive up to 25 or 30 spams each and every day. Someone (usually a crook from another country) is always sending "money transfer" requests or inheritance from people I don't even know. Never once have I received such crap on Hotmail. We live in a free country, do as you wish, but I love Hotmail (and Operamail is also good, but not as good as Hotmail).

Hey Jim, it is not that you are subscribed to Windows Live or Hotmail, it is that you are letting it (Windows Live or MSN Messenger) run at startup. No amount of opting out of accounts or closing them will help. Go to the "Start" button (or orb, if in Vista), go to "run" in XP, type in "msconfig" (without the quotes), go to the "selective startup" thingie, and find Windows Live or MSN Messenger in there , and turn it off. Problem solved.You can have a hundred Windows Live accounts, and if you do this, you will never be aware you have them.

I have used HOTMAIL for many nears and have much info stored there. I have two questions: 1. How do I download the contents of Hotmail to my computer? 2. How do I remove the recently added "Windows Live" portion from my computer? When I added it I was assured that I could remove it if not happy with it. I am not happy. But I am unable to uninstall it. I also used a beta uninstaller for WL, but the beta will not open on my Powerbook G4 Mac. Ron

I had an old email account on hotmail that I believe has been hacked and I cannot seem to delete the darn thing - Why isn't there a way to just delete it in one shot? why do I have to wait 270 days to close something I don't want? I know it is free and all but i don't want to be associated with this thing any longer - will someone please help me? Thank you.

Please read the article you just commented on. I don't see why you need to do anything at all.

27-Nov-2009