sometimes even emails from people you know really are not from people you know! I just got an email from my nephew who often times sends me links to see his kids on little videos or picture albums. Yesterday when I got the email from him and noticed all the email addresses at the top that struck me as strange because he is like me and never leaves email addresses exposed, then on to the link, before I clicked it I hovered my mouse over it and looked down at the bottom of my browser to see if it would give the same address as the link well it did NOT, which let me know this was going to re-direct me somewhere else. That is how people end up on porn sites and infected sites with out knowing how they got there! Since I was on linux and was not afraid of infection I clicked the link and sure enough it took me to some viagra site. Which if I had gone there on my windows machines may well have tried to install some type of malware. So I emailed my nephew immediately to let him know he had a problem. He thankfully was already aware of it and was scanning with malwarebytes to see what showed up. Something had taken over his email and sent that out to everyone in his list which is why all those email addresses were showing, so it looked like it was from him but it was not really him that sent it. So anytime you have a link in an email it is a very good idea to hover your mouse over it and see if it shows the same address down below as it does in the link. This is one reason I hate those short links since you have no idea what the link is going to.

Try this: Microsoft help with error message.

The way that I understand it, you will need to download Windows Live as an email client if you want to continue to get Hotmail into your computer. And you need to have at least XP on your computer to do that. You will, however, still be able to use Hotmail at the MSN website. An alternative is to use another POP email address, such as Gmail, and you can continue to use Outlook Express. IMHO, this is just another way that Microsoft is forcing people to upgrade their operating system when, in fact, the old operating system is doing all that one wants it to do. I am using 2000 PRO and it does all that I need it to do. I just today set up 2 friend's Outlook Express to get mail from Gmail and they are going to dump Hotmail. Smitty Smitty

Just a quick update to anyone who may (or may not!) be interested in my original problem... After literally weeks of frustrating searches, futile attempts and dead-ends, I wiped Outlook Express from my computer and downloaded Thunderbird...it's a real gem! I did lose my old address book (but luckily I had a replica within Hotmail), but DID keep all sent/deleted/saved messages...can easily rebuild address book as people email me...messages to my old OE address still arrive at new Thunderbird one, so I'm a very happy chappy! Regards to all, Shax