microsoft live vs hotmail issue

Ken,

I think you are right about the alias thing. I can get into it from my computer using the gmail address. I tried entering her old email address in to see if I can get in it, and it errors me telling me it doesn't exist.



When I try to add it back as an alias, it tells me its on a reserved domain



I tried to delete the Gmail address and it errored me again for the primary alias.



So, should I try to do account recovery to get the hotmail email address back? Is there something else I should do? Or have I totally hosed it?

Once again, Thank you so much!

B

- - - Updated - - -

mngerhold When I try to log into my sister’s Hotmail account it says that it doesn’t exist. My sister has had this Hotmail account for over 20 years. Judging from Ken’s emails, I somehow changed the Hotmail address into thinking it’s a Gmail address. (I just posted about that upthread) Her “old” Hotmail emails are now showing up under the Gmail account when I go to outlook.com. They do not show up in Gmail. So I decidedly think that Ken is correct.
I think now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to get her Hotmail alias back where it belongs so she can continue to receive emails from her doctors. Thanks for trying though! I really do appreciate it!

B

I know you are struggling with this, but it seems worth checking if new emails sent to the hotmail address actually arrive somewhere: send an email to it yourself (from your own email acct), and confirm that it arrives in the 'Outlook account' you have called 'xxx@gmail.com' (as shown in post #11). If it does, then that account is working OK, and the hotmail address can be used (for receiving, at least). What I think you won't be able to do is get it called 'anything@hotmail.com'. That shouldn't matter - you may be able to add an alias to, say. 'xxx@hotmail99.com' (and then delete the gmail.com alias), so that when logging in your sister gets to use something that mentions Hotmail - but you (and she) have to think of it as simply an Outlook user ID now.

Am I helping, or muddying the waters?

I can't really solve your problem, but there are a few key concepts to understand here.

1) A microsoft account is an authentication mechanism, and not an email account.
2) In most cases, when you create a Microsoft email account (via outlook, hotmail, etc) it also creates an identical Microsoft login account for you as well, and these are paired.
3) It's quite possible to use a non-microsoft email address to create your Microsoft login account. Again, this is just for login, and is not paired to any email account.

Now, the problem here is that if you removed the pairing between the Microsoft email, and the microsoft login account, i'm not sure if it's possible to get it back. Effectively, you may have "orphaned" the email account. You might try contacting microsoft support to try and get it "re-paired", but given all the issues with proving your identity and that you actually own the account, that may not be a successful path.

The key to remember is that a microsoft account (login account) is NOT the same as your outlook or hotmail or live.com email account, even though they may have the same email address. If you remove the association of these accounts, it's a tough path to restore them.

I sent an email to the hotmail account and It bounces with an email not found note.

Now that I understand that I screwed up the alias (thank you Ken!) I have tried to recover the Hotmail account. That can take up to 24 hours,

I am reading conflicting information on whether or not the alias can be recovered. Some forums say that you can for up to six months. Others say that you can't recover it at all.

So, we'll see where I get with that. Hopefully, that will end that piece part. Once that is taken care of I am going to back up both machines and see how to go about doing a format and reload.

Thank you all!

B

I tried to do the recovery on it. It failed. It tells me that I need to put the domain in the recovery tool.. in this case Hotmail.com. Now, when I do that, it tells me that the email doesn't exist. I did do a few searches online that give me conflicting information. Some forum posts say I have to wait 30 days before I can recover the account. Others say that if its Hotmail it cannot be recovered at all. That being said, the text of the email did specifically list Hotmail.com, so I don't think that should be an issue at this point.

So, does anyone know if I have to wait 30 days? Is there another way around that? I know someone mentioned calling support, but from what I saw on the web, they charge 500.00 USD for one instance. Was I even looking at the right place? Assuming I can come up with the funds to call support to get this fixed, what would I need to provide them? I can get a scan of her ID and a bank statement with an address. I submitted email addresses and subject lines from her sent folder, and had added extra to prove her account is hers.

Anyone have any ideas? If her medical teams weren't hooked into this email address, It wouldn't be such a hot issue for her. I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks!

B

One of the websites that says its not possible:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...3-d8cf46c9de62

This one says I have to wait 30 days:
account management - How to reset primary Outlook alias back to my Hotmail ID - Web Applications Stack Exchange

If it helps, the text of the rejection letter:

We have taken the additional step of blocking your account sct**68 until we can verify you as the account owner. This will prevent any further use of the account, and protect you from any possible malicious activity.

Please submit a new account verification form

At this point, your best option is to submit a new form with as much accurate information as you can gather. The more information you can include in the form, the better the chance you’ll have of regaining access to your account. We’ve included a few tips below to help you fill out the form as completely as possible.

> Submit a new form

Helpful tips for filling out another form:

Answer as many questions as you can.
Use the information you provided when you created the account, or last updated it.
Submit the form from a computer you frequently use.
You will be asked to list recently used email addresses and the subject lines from recent emails. Ask for help from family members, friends, or business contacts to confirm their email addresses and tell you the subject lines of the last three emails they sent you.
Make sure to use the correct domain for your account, such as hotmail.com, live.com, or outlook.com. Keep in mind that your email address may be country specific. For example, if you created your account in Sweden, your domain would be “hotmail.co.se” rather than “hotmail.com”.

I saw those links myself (or ones like them) and decided to keep what was probaly bad news to myself (as the answers were not all the same). Note that the link which says you have to wait 30 days is 7 years old, whilst the one that says it is impossible is under 2 years old (and Diane Poremsky is a well respected authority on this stuff - slipstick.com has been my saviour in the past). I know which one is more likely to be right.

Note that Hotmail users were migrated (in some way), and (I believe) told to switch to Outlook.com the same 7 years ago! see Microsoft's Hotmail phase-out: What's a user to do? | ZDNet

I hope you manage to sort this, but I think your sister should start planning to tell every email contact that she has a new address (after getting one, of course) - it's not that big a deal in the end, and she probably doesn't want to wait 30 days with no emails in what may be vain hope that the hotmail address can be recovered.