So I’ve recommended outlook.com for a while now, and it’s about to get much better.  Problems with syncing contacts, mail getting out of synch, and calendar issues are about to go away.  Contact group functionality is about to return.  But most importantly, outlook.com should just work a whole lot better.

Microsoft is moving outlook.com accounts from its old hotmail system and outlook.com site to a new Exchange-server based outlook.com service.  This means that outlook.com will now support the “Exchange server” option in mail clients, offering a full feature set of tools for organizing and syncing mail, contacts, and calendars.  This much more robust platform replaces “ActiveSync” which is what the outlook.com and hotmail.com and live.com mail have been using for years.  EAS (Exchange Active Sync) was set up as an Exchange-server lite, stripped of important features and not designed for the highest performance.  This crippled version of Exchange is about to be replaced with the full version of Exchange.

Some of my clients got a note in November, 2015 that they would be migrating soon.  Once the migration happens, certain email programs will need a quick update.  Here is an excellent link to the process: Slipstick.com – Notes on outlook.com migration

Please contact me if your outlook.com is updating or no longer working.  Not only will I fix it, but I’ll show you all the new things we can now do, including contact groups and lists!

Tim