Hotmail Upgraded – Whether You Want It or Not

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
Windows Live Hotmail users are up in arms over being forced to upgrade to a new version of Hotmail. Since people tend to be resistant to change, especially when it comes to user interfaces, it’s expected that not everyone will be happy. However, some of the answers in this brief FAQ from the Hotmail team seem to indicate they didn’t really think this all the way through.

We can’t provide two fast, secure, reliable experiences, so we have decided to just keep the new version. However, we will continue to improve the new version, based on many of your comments here, to make it work better for you.
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I've been using hotmail for about the last 8 years, and I honestly can't see any improvement in the new version over the old one. It's not really bothering me, but it just seems totally pointless. If anything, I would say the new version looks like a step backwards than a step forward.
 
The thing Microsoft used to do best was user interfaces but since 2005 their interfaces have been falling rapidly in quality and what’s worse is that they never provide an option to revert to the old interface.

First there was Visual Studio 2005 where the changed the tabs to open in the exact opposite order to every other application there is (new tabs open on the left). While in the passed open files would remain in the same position they now get pushed along to the right so are constantly changing position. You have to look through the entire tab bar to find the file you want and spend a lot of time moving them around to where you want them only for Visual Studio to move them again. This behaviour isn’t remotely sensible which is why applications like FireFox, Opera and even IE don’t follow it. It would be a simple matter to provide the option to have new tabs open on the right but Microsoft seem intent on forcing this ridiculous behaviour on users.

Then there was IE7 where, instead of having a line of buttons on a toolbar, they decided to spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth. They also disabled the menu bar by default and when you enable it appears in an utterly ridiculous place. Following this fiasco I switched to Firefox which I’ve found to be vastly better than IE.

Next was Windows Media Player 11 where they decided to make the position bar about 2 pixels thick so it’s practically invisible, added an absurd button arrangement, got rid of the menu bars and added some ridiculous animations. I switched to Media Player Classic.

Next was Office 2007 which got rid of toolbars and menu bars and instead replaced them with a massive mess at the top of the screen. As far as I know not one other application has adopted ribbons in place of toolbars so it seems only Microsoft think they’re an improvement. I’ve changed to Kingsoft Office.

There was also Vista but let’s not go there. Fortunately XP is supported until 2014 so we’re good for a while to come.

I used to use mostly Microsoft applications but now the only one I’m still using is Visual Studio. I can’t imagine what Microsoft are thinking with some of these changes but they’re very successfully getting me to switch to alternative applications. This isn’t about being resistant to change - I like change when it’s for the better. Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 was a massive improvement and I was enthusiastic about the changes. IE to Firefox was a massive improvement and again I was happy for the change. However, most of Microsoft’s recent user interface changes have been much to the deferment of the application and this leaves me with no option but to look elsewhere.
 
The new interface finally looks 2008 and not 1999, but in the process they made it less friendly to other browsers. The standard site no longer works on my iPod Touch, forcing me to use the lame mobile version, and while they say it works in Firefox, I tried it with Firefox in Kubuntu and it did not work.
 
The new hotmail is actually fast, something that no other version of hotmail has done before. I could care less about fancy graphics when it comes to my email (why I use gmail). The previous version was a lot slower than this version, so I'd say this version is better.
 
I just use Outlook for my hotmail/msn accounts. Screw logging into the web gui all the time.
 
w1retap said:
I just use Outlook for my hotmail/msn accounts. Screw logging into the web gui all the time.
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You sir are the Winner!!!


I totally agree it's just easier to do it this way, plus you remove the hassle of being used to multiple interfaces and crap you don't like. Outlook mail is still the best imo.
 
w1retap said:
I just use Outlook for my hotmail/msn accounts. Screw logging into the web gui all the time.
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i agree with this. just make sure to leave the messages on the hotmail servers if you can... it sucks when you forget to backup your email and you reinstall windows.
 
Yup, there's a little dialog in account settings to "leave messages on server". =D
 
I was using Thunderbird for about 8 months before Outlook, but hotmail, msn, and gmail all do something to where you have to keep updating your Thunderbird plug-ins and settings for those mail services and it screws up mail sending/retrieval.
 
Wow, I thought they were talking about the last upgrade. This one actually looks sweet! So clean and simple...it's beautiful!
 
lol,

I couldn't upgrade since the account was tie to Verizon, had to do some work to untie things, and I like the new interface, current with the times, the old one was just old :D

and agree the web interface should on be used on rare occasions, you need to get organized with outlook or something else

for people with apple products aka iphone etc, you can use mbox app to retrieve your mail and agree hotmail is made to be use with internet explorer, as both products belong to ms, safari etc don't play nicely, apple does the same thing with their products, is business;)

sam
 
the new themes are freakin horrible. thats my only problem with it. other than that its nice and clean. BUT I WANT MY PLAIN RED THEME BACK.
 
Like some of the others users here, I have been using Hotmail since it first launched, and keep a paid for account. I have also used a seperate client to retrieve my email from them since Outlook Express was launched. When they upgraded the server so you could no longer use OE to check your Hotmail, I switched to Windows Live Mail. I generally avoid using the web interface on web email accounts just because they can be cumbersome, and subject to frequent changes over the years. Not to mention, that unlike a seperate email client, you can only access one account at a time. They have upgraded the features and look of the web interface many times over the years, and I expect it'll continue on that trend.
 
AbsintheCommando said:
People still use hotmail?!
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It was my first e-mail, so much stuff goes there it would be a mess for me to change it. Aside from that, it works great so I don't even want to change it. The spam filter is great, lots of storage, good interface. I noticed the change, it doesn't bother me.
 
w1retap said:
Yup, there's a little dialog in account settings to "leave messages on server". =D
Click to expand...

actually a bigger reason to do this is because i sometimes used my laptop to check mail, sometimes my desktop and it was just a pain if you have it take the read messages off the server because you never know what pc that message you read was on.
 
As long as you don't try and do it all at once, phasing out old email accounts isn't that hard. Just have the old forward into the new and setup a rule to indicate when you have something going to the legacy account. Update sites on your normal visit schedule, or when they email you something. Ditto for pushing out your new preferred address. After a month or two you should only rarely have anything come in via the old account. At this point executing the old one or not becomes a matter of preference. I've currently got two all but dead (real traffic is only a few messages/year) accounts forwarding into my gmail. As long as they stay free and gmails spam filter holds the line against the one (my hotpop account was retired due to a severe spam problem, myrealbox just had reliability issues) I'm probably not going to bother removing either.
 
I still use my hotmail account for everything I need email for, the new user interface does not bother me one bit since its essentially the exact same thing.

I don't see the difference in loading up a webpage vs. loading up outlook, one you load up an entirely different program (one that likes to take up aprox 200M of memory) or load up a browser/new tab and just click it, bam I'm in, no reason to use outlook.

I must also mention that the security of hotmail is great, with one hack on my account, all I had to do was send in a single email (after reading the outline they wanted me to send) from work with the information they asked for and in an hour it was locked and reset.
 
Though the new version runs better then the Live! beta, I use to just use the classic, but I like this new interface.
 
Mr Milquetoast said:
The thing Microsoft used to do best was user interfaces but since 2005 their interfaces have been falling rapidly in quality and what’s worse is that they never provide an option to revert to the old interface.

First there was Visual Studio 2005 where the changed the tabs to open in the exact opposite order to every other application there is (new tabs open on the left). While in the passed open files would remain in the same position they now get pushed along to the right so are constantly changing position. You have to look through the entire tab bar to find the file you want and spend a lot of time moving them around to where you want them only for Visual Studio to move them again. This behaviour isn’t remotely sensible which is why applications like FireFox, Opera and even IE don’t follow it. It would be a simple matter to provide the option to have new tabs open on the right but Microsoft seem intent on forcing this ridiculous behaviour on users.

Then there was IE7 where, instead of having a line of buttons on a toolbar, they decided to spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth. They also disabled the menu bar by default and when you enable it appears in an utterly ridiculous place. Following this fiasco I switched to Firefox which I’ve found to be vastly better than IE.

Next was Windows Media Player 11 where they decided to make the position bar about 2 pixels thick so it’s practically invisible, added an absurd button arrangement, got rid of the menu bars and added some ridiculous animations. I switched to Media Player Classic.

Next was Office 2007 which got rid of toolbars and menu bars and instead replaced them with a massive mess at the top of the screen. As far as I know not one other application has adopted ribbons in place of toolbars so it seems only Microsoft think they’re an improvement. I’ve changed to Kingsoft Office.

There was also Vista but let’s not go there. Fortunately XP is supported until 2014 so we’re good for a while to come.

I used to use mostly Microsoft applications but now the only one I’m still using is Visual Studio. I can’t imagine what Microsoft are thinking with some of these changes but they’re very successfully getting me to switch to alternative applications. This isn’t about being resistant to change - I like change when it’s for the better. Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 was a massive improvement and I was enthusiastic about the changes. IE to Firefox was a massive improvement and again I was happy for the change. However, most of Microsoft’s recent user interface changes have been much to the deferment of the application and this leaves me with no option but to look elsewhere.
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I love ribbons, and for that, I give my praise to Office 2007. Office 2003's interface is simply not as usable, in my opinion.

As for Visual Studio, to me it feels pretty similar across 2003, 2005, and 2008. It's just that they add more usability features to VS with every release. For example, in 2003, you couldn't even find all references to a function call.
 
The new version sucks IMHO - there was nothing wrong with the old version. Someone's always got to screw with something that works.
 
I think it sucks because they removed the email size from the new format. I use my hotmail account at work, which is on drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. We are on a shared sat broadband connection and I have a few friends that insist on sending me crap with large attachments. And in order to not hog the little available bandwidth downloading multi-megabyte email, I simply didn't open any email that was over 1 MB in size until I got in from the rig. But now there is no way for me to tell how large a email is, so this pretty much screws me over for using this account at work any more. Other than that it doesn't bother me that much, but without being able to check the size of an email my hotmail account is totally useless to me for work purposes. :(
 
AbsintheCommando said:
People still use hotmail?!
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I already knew people still use hotmail (and I have an account for testing compose URIs with it). But, I just don't understand why people rely on it for their primary email. It's a huge pile of shit. It's always been that way and a new UI isn't going to (and doesn't) help.

The hotmail devs obviously don't know (or don't care) about browser compatibility (how much it breaks depends on which browser you're using and the compose page doesn't even look right on small screens in IE8 beta 2). Of course, Yahoo webmail is the same way.

I guess if you've always used hotmail, you might not realize how much it sucks. But, it's cool. You can use whatever you want, even if it sucks.

I'll stick to using Gmail. It blows hotmail and yahoo out of the water.
 
I'm liking live mail, both the online version and the new client version.

good stuff. I like what this live team is doing.
 
I'm moving all my accounts to google. I hate it. The new interface sucks and half the time I can't even get my mail to work right. I have near constant login and timeout issues. I can't search through my inbox properly anymore. Just not worth it.

I'm one of those hold out types on everything but google mail is simple, easy to use, and most importantly it actually works. I will actually msn hotmail. I still like live messenger though.
 
I thought I clicked on somethnig by misteake and had hoped it was just me. I don't really loke the look of floating on clouds while reading my email and the reply pane doesn't render right in my firefox. There are things missing that I need like the ability to view source and a few other things. I can say its quicker and more reponsive but then again I didnt't mind the old one.
 
piscian18 said:
I'm moving all my accounts to google. I hate it. The new interface sucks and half the time I can't even get my mail to work right. I have near constant login and timeout issues. I can't search through my inbox properly anymore. Just not worth it.

I'm one of those hold out types on everything but google mail is simple, easy to use, and most importantly it actually works. I will actually msn hotmail. I still like live messenger though.
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are you using minefield? the new hotmail never worked right for me in minefield. every other computer i've tried with firefox renders things just fine. its just the themes that are the problem for me. if they brought back the solid color themes i'd stop bitching lol.
 
My mother was also up in arms about the change. She liked the interface and the speed, but she hated the Contact List. She said she didn't like how it won't show email addresses anymore in Contact.

I'm a Gmail user myself. Do you have to be a paid Hotmail user to use Outlook as your Hotmail client?
 
Azhar said:
My mother was also up in arms about the change. She liked the interface and the speed, but she hated the Contact List. She said she didn't like how it won't show email addresses anymore in Contact.

I'm a Gmail user myself. Do you have to be a paid Hotmail user to use Outlook as your Hotmail client?
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yeah. outlook doesn't offer hotmail account usage anymore. you'd have to use windows live mail or pay for POP access.
 
markt435 said:
its just the themes that are the problem for me. if they brought back the solid color themes i'd stop bitching lol.
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This is my only complaint; I used the basic black theme for my account and it was very clean looking. Now there's this greyish brown texture that's somewhat annoying (visually) and it's the best choice out of all of them.
 
[UPS] Sorce;1033292737 said:
This is my only complaint; I used the basic black theme for my account and it was very clean looking. Now there's this greyish brown texture that's somewhat annoying (visually) and it's the best choice out of all of them.
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thats the one i use as well. didn't like the style of the grey theme at all. the grey one also seems similar to one of the themes that the zune software uses but i'd have to look again. meh bad microsoft bad.
 
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