Summary: Windows Live Hotmail is the new interface to your Hotmail account. You can currently switch back to MSN Hotmail, but that may not stay true.
Somehow I've been converted to the "new" Windows Live Hotmail interface, and I don't like it. I want to switch things back to the way they were before. How do I do that?
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I'll show you, but I'll also warn you.
The forward march of progress always has casualties, and I believe that what you're calling the "old" Hotmail interface is going to be one of them.
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It wasn't that difficult for me to revert back to the old style of Hotmail.
While looking at my inbox, I clicked on the Options link:
On the resulting page the option to "Switch to MSN Hotmail" is near the top:
I clicked that and all was back to the old familiar interface.
Pretty simple.
But, I'm betting that there's a catch.
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From what I've read and what I've seen in the past, I'm expecting that this option will go away. In fact, it might not even be present for many of you now.
I expect Microsoft to completely discontinue the old MSN Hotmail interface, effectively forcing everyone to move to the new one.
So while you can switch back, my recommendation is that you do not. My recommendation is that you take the time to become comfortable with the new interface, and perhaps send Microsoft feedback on the problems you encounter. I know that the new version has fixed some issues (you can now specify that all sent mail be automatically saved), and apparently removed some functionality (I still can't seem to send "plain text" emails).
But regardless of how you feel about it, it certainly appears to be the direction that Microsoft is taking Hotmail.
And if you don't like it, there's always GMail, Yahoo mail, and many others.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Are free email services worth it?
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Ask Leo! - Why doesn't MSN Hotmail save my Sent Mail?
Article C3032 - May 21, 2007
I cant send mails to my contacts,whenever i try my window shut down.I cant go from my mail back to my inbox the window shut down also.I need to switch back to the old version of windows please.
Posted by: Sue Garnett at July 18, 2007 9:20 AMI despise Live Hotmail. I'm in the Junk folder and there is no "NOT JUNK" button? This is GA software and I'm paying for this. I assume if I click "junk" it would give me an option to mark it as not junk. Since there is no "not junk" option what else could it be? They just couldn't have left out the "not junk" option! So I click JUNK and a very important email vanishes forever. The other user's comment about casualties of older software and people who use it is ALL wrong. With the LIVE HOTMAIL the only casualty is the paying customer.
Posted by: scott at July 19, 2007 8:44 AMand another thing: the missing email was not in the trash folder and the old hotmail had a "not junk" button".
Posted by: scott at July 19, 2007 8:57 AMWell as far as I know, MICROSOFT should be looking forward to improving hotmail and Windows Live Hotmail is a mess.
Posted by: Maria at July 25, 2007 12:38 AMi have a lot of very important pictures and other emails sent to me, now I cannotretrieve any of it because of this new window live hotmail. I think someone should have ask if I want to change to new verse, even though this is a fre account, they say go to home page and click on option, I have done that and get no results. I need to know so I can retieve my important picture, I could have print them off before the change
Posted by: Roma S. Fuqua at July 25, 2007 6:37 PMI have also lost all my old emails as well as about 40 email addresses of contacts that I had stored. How can I get them back?????? I'm kinda upset!!
Posted by: Michelle at August 5, 2007 10:38 AMiam tryin to get back to the old virsion of msn hotmail cos i dont like the new windows live virison and it doesnt have anywhere where it says swtich back to the msn hotmail how do i do it now?
Posted by: amy at August 7, 2007 8:23 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Read the article: my belief is that you cannot.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at August 7, 2007 10:57 AMx3N7BQKmGTm/C5gsmT4qJLk=
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Hello, I have a problem with my hotmail. As my other hotmail account is using Window Live Hotmail and with that account, it will not let me change back to the MSN hotmail version as I took a ScreenShot to show the preview of what it looks like.
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j48/Final08/ffs.jpg
You can see that my old account will not change back to the MSN hotmail as there is no link to change back to MSN Hotmail.
Hope you can help me please!
Many thanks.
Posted by: Elliott at August 7, 2007 4:02 PMTo be clear: I fully expect the transition to the new Windows Live Hotmail to be required at some point. I believe that at some point once you switch to Windows Live Hotmail you will not be able to switch back.
Now, if the link mentioned in the article is missing, then I believe that's expected. Some people have it, some people don't. If you don't have that link, then you cannot switch back.
I believe that over time that link will disappear for everyone, and you'll be required to migrate to and use the new Windows Live Hotmail interface. I believe the old MSN Hotmail interface is going away for everyone, eventually.
Like it, or not.
08-Aug-2007