The Windows Live Hotmail team has announced that POP access is now available for all Hotmail users. POP access allows you to use any mail client program to access your e-mail, unlike Outlook Connector, which is only working with Microsoft Outlook.

POP settings to use for Hotmail

• POP server: pop3.live.com
• POP SSL required? Yes
• User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
• Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
• SMTP server: smtp.live.com
• Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
• TLS/SSL required? Yes

How to enable POP access in Outlook 2007

1. Click “Tools”, “Account Settings...”.
2. On the “E-mail” tab, click “New...”.
3. If you are prompted to “Choose E-mail Service”, select “Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP”, and click “Next”.
4. Check the checkbox at “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”, and click “Next”.
5. Select “Internet e-mail” and click “Next”.
6. In the section “User Information”, enter your name and your Hotmail address.
7. In the section “Server Information”, select “POP3” as “Account Type”, enter “pop3.live.com” as “Incoming mail server” and “smtp.live.com” as “Outgoing mail server”.
8. “Logon Information” are your Hotmail address (including @hotmail.com or @live.com), along with your password.
9. Now click the button “More Settings...”, and switch to the “Outgoing Server” tab.
10. Check the checkbox “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”.
11. On the “Advanced” tab, at “Incoming server (POP3)”, check the checkbox “This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)”.
12. At “Outgoing server (SMTP)”, open the select box “Use the following type of encrypted connection”, and choose “TLS”.
13. Now click “OK”, “Next” and “Finish”. You're done!

More recently added Hotmail updates

Additionally, with the recent updates, we have seen the following changes:

• Room for all your mails
  Hotmail now offers 5 GB room for your e-mails. What if you need more? Your storage capacity will automatically increase as you need it.
• Changed position for advertisements
  The top ad banner is gone, now we see a banner on the right side, stealing less room on smaller screen resolutions like 1024x768.
• Quick Add
  For example, you're abroad and want to meet some friends there, but they don't know the location well. Now what you do is open Hotmail and type a message, then you open Quick Add.
  When you found a nice restaurant to invite your friends to, simply click "Insert" to add its information to your e-mail draft.
• What's New feed in Today
  After adding the What's New feed in the Windows Live Home and Profile, you have it now directly at your fingertips when opening Hotmail - it's part of your Windows Live Hotmail Today page.

However, we're still waiting for the announced Web Messenger in Hotmail to appear. Looking at MIX09, Microsoft's annual development conference, coming this week, we're looking forward to what Windows Live news it brings to us. Stay tuned for more information on this...

Open Windows Live Hotmail
View the official Hotmail team announcement