Make Windows Live Hotmail your default email program in Windows Vista

If you use Windows Live Hotmail as your main email instead of Windows Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird or some other email program, and you want to make it come up as your default email program when you click on a mailto link, here is how to do it.

Go to this WinHelpOnline page, download the registerhm.zip file and follow the instructions under the Registering Hotmail with the Default Programs tool heading. It is very simple. This only works in Windows Vista (not Windows XP).
This utility can make it so Windows Live Mail comes up when you click on a mailto link, or want to send a link, when you press the mail button (if you have one) on your keyboard, or when you send an email directly from a program on your computer. In other words, it makes Windows Live Mail your default email program.

For Windows XP, check out the instructions here.

AVG Free 8, Thunderbird and Hotmail

Currently, AVG Free 8 blocks outgoing Hotmail (aka Windows Live Mail) emails, when Hotmail is set up in your Thunderbird.
To alleviate this, open AVG, go to the Email scanner and disable scanning of outgoing email. This will let Hotmail setup within Thunderbird send mail out properly.

Using Hotmail in Thunderbird - Update

UPDATE!
With the update of the Webmail-Hotmail extension to version 1.2.5, I found that I could no longer send mail with the settings below. After some experimentation, I found that you need to change one setting: in the options for the Webmail-Hotmail extension, in Accounts, Mode, change it from "Hotmail Live (new website)" to "WebDav". This seems to work.



Here is the definitive guide (with the current Hotmail site) for setting this up.

Note: the links to the extensions mentioned here are in my previous posts about Hotmail and Thunderbird.

1) make sure you have the latest version of Thunderbird
2) Install the extensions: Webmail, and Webmail-Hotmail (and make sure they are the latest versions)
3) Make sure you have updated your Hotmail to the new the new Hotmail Live (do so via the website if you haven't)
4) Set up the account in Thunderbird (don't worry if you have some settings wrong at first)
5) Open the options in the Webmail extension and ensure that the Pop (port 110) and SMTP (port 25) servers are enabled
6) Open the options in the Webmail-Hotmail extension and in Accounts, Mode, check off "Hotmail Live (new website)". Make your selections in the POP tab, and in the SMTP tab.
7) You are now ready to adjust your server settings.

Outgoing server: hotmail - localhost

Incoming server settings
Server name: localhost. Port: 110
Username: yourname@hotmail.com (your full hotmail address)
Security Settings: Never

Outgoing Server
Server name: localhost
port 25
User name: yourname@hotmail.com
TLS if available.


Done.

Thunderbird and Hotmail

Something seems to have changed today so you can no longer use the old Hotmail with Thunderbird 2. However, if you switch to the new Live Hotmail, and change a setting in the Hotmail extension, Hotmail will work again in Thunderbird 2.

1. Make sure you have the new versions of Webmail and Hotmail for TB 2 from
http://webmail.mozdev.org/installation.html
If you don't, uninstall the old extensions, then install the Webmail extension, then the Hotmail extension.

2. Go into the options in the Hotmail extension and check off "Hotmail Live (new website)".

Everything should work okay now.

If you don't have Thunderbird 2, get it.

UPDATE
Currently, you can't use hotmail for the outgoing server. You have to use something else - usually your regular ISP's outgoing server.

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 Is Finally Ready

Thunderbird 2 is finally available. Download here. Install it on top of the old Thunderbird (1.5...).

Some of your old extensions and themes might not work (at first). The theme I was using did not work and things looked very messed up. I switched to the new default theme and things were fine. If you use small icons on the toolbars, you may need to Customize and uncheck and then re-check Use small icons to make this work.

Release notes are here if you are interested in all the details of what is new.

The only problem I had was with my Hotmail that I had set up with 2 extensions so I could read and send Hotmail email via Thunderbird. To fix it, I had to delete my Hotmail account within Thunderbird and recreate it using the new Webmail feature in Thunderbird. If you are dealing with this situation too, make sure to include "@hotmail.com" in the user name, and for the outgoing server, use the one you were using with the old Hotmail extension set up. The new account will default to an outgoing server of: "Webmail - localhost" which is a weird combination of your regular ISP account and hotmail and this does not work. Use the hotmail - local outgoing server that you set up previously - it works.
Then, I went onto my hotmail on the web and marked everything as UNread and then re-downloaded all the messages into Thunderbird. Adjust the account settings for the newly set up Hotmail in Thunderbird to keep messages on the server.

My Gmail, that I had set up as a POP account in Thunderbird still works fine.

If you want to force some old extensions to work in the new Thunderbird, install the Mr Tech Local Install extension (Firefox and Thunderbird) and then configure it to allow the old extensions to work (this doesn't work for the old webmail/hotmail extensions though). It may not work for some extensions.