Hey, y'all!
You were so helpful with an earlier question about DVDs, so I wondered if you might have an answer for this one, as well...
Here's the thing:
For various reasons, I recently got a Hotmail account. Works well, when it works at all. The problem is that four or five times a week (At least), my computer tells me it can't find Hotmail or MSN, and it sometimes takes hours until It will allow me to access my mail. and the problem seems to be getting more frequent.
Now, other addresses work just fine, when MSN is missing, so It must be MSNs fault, right? I'm told, however, that MSN is highly reliable, and is NEVER down. I don't know what to beleive, but I am understandably P*ssed about this, and no one has an explanation. My E-mails concerning this have gone unanswered.
Anyone else have this problem? Anyone have a theory, explanation, or remedy? I need this account, as some of my friends can only get through to me, via hotmail... (yet ANOTHER mystery no one's explained to me...). Help!

My theory is this:


Hotmail is incredibly crap.


You need a Gmail account - it's a waaaay better webmail service. PM me with your current email addy, and I'll send you an invite.

As Jon says, switch to Gmail, it is better in many ways.

Hotmail is a very slow system at the best of times. It's hard to say why you're having the problems that you are but I would think that it might be best to see if you can find a techie friend around to have a look at your computer. It sounds like something a little odd is going on.

(moved to Tips and Tricks)

Cobblers. MSN goes down several times a day. Trust me, I'm a maniac.

Teehee, MSN, never down? You have been lied to.

I personally don't have a gmail account because my broadband internet has an e-mail system, but from what I've heard I would switch.

Meh, my account has a whole range of email addresses but I have quite a few on other services too. It can be handy to have one linked to all your forum accounts, another for registrations, a public one which gets all the spam, etc. My favourite use for Gmail is to send myself the files I end up using all over the place so that I have them all handy to download when I want them. The large mailbox is perfect for it.

my msn has been down for days and everything else seems normal!

It is driving me mad!

Otharia, have you downloaded the new MSN? It may be worth you doing so, it's a lot more fun as well

yeah i had down

it was just a connection problems at my end

but thanks anyway

I _hate_ the new MSN, MSN7 is the source of all evil, it's so horribly cluttered and redundant! I'll stay away from it as long as I can *kicks it*

agh.. yes.. I had it installed for 2 days and the second day it wouldn't even log me in after something like 15 tries. I eventually just gave up and uninstalled it. Also, there are too many tool bars and junk that I just don't need. and then there are the advertisements that masquerade as 'themes' like the yahoo messenger themes. Silly really. It takes up too much space, has too many ads on it, it doesn't work, has too many tools, and I don't like it.

The mess.be patch for MSN7 is a godsend. It allows you to remove all the features of msn7 which are so annoying, and strip it down to the bare minimum of what you need. No more adverts, no more winks and nudges.

Suddenly msn7 is good again. Hooray!