Email help please!

Pydpiper

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I have two computers, my laptop and my Home machine. Both operate on XP and run Outlook for mail. It is set to check my home account and my Hotmaill account simutaniously.
A couple/few weeks ago my email went goofy on my laptop, it immediatly gives me an error when I push send/recieve I get "Access to account is denied" and some other stuff from the hotmail process and "the server name you entered can not be found on the network" and some other stuff. My other computer has the exact settings and works fine.
It gets worse. Now as of today my other computer is doing the exact same thing. But.. I did see out of the corner of my eye a little box on the bottom right down by the clock that "updates we're automatically installed" This may be a coincidence, but it was just before I tried my mail with no success.
Could it be a virus? How do I fix this?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif
 

Lunal_Tic

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Hotmail has been on the fritz since last week. Also I think they're trying to make the "free" users move up to premium (read paid) services so are emasculating the old free service to give us incentive. Drug dealer tactics, give'em a taste then take it away and charge more.

In case you can't tell I'm having probs with MS Hotmail too.
-LT
 

Lunal_Tic

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Actually, prior to the recent rash of BS Hotmail has been reliable for me. Hence my nefarious take on the happenings.

-LT
 

Pydpiper

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This is not a hotmail issue.
These errors pop up prior to it trying to connect, that is why I suspect a virus.
As I stated, this problem only existed on my laptop, so side by side one would access my 2 accounts and one would reject me with the errors stated above.
 

Lunal_Tic

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Actually your message is the same as the one I've gotten. It's not a virus it's Hotmail. They've been having problems and I've emailed about it. They finally responded and now it works; for how long I couldn't tell you. As for possible other viruses, you don't have anti virus on your computer already? If not, get it and keep it updated.

-LT
 

Pydpiper

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[ QUOTE ]
Lunal_Tic said:
Actually your message is the same as the one I've gotten. It's not a virus it's Hotmail. They've been having problems and I've emailed about it. They finally responded and now it works; for how long I couldn't tell you. As for possible other viruses, you don't have anti virus on your computer already? If not, get it and keep it updated.

-LT

[/ QUOTE ]
I can accept that, the problem is that my ISP email is doing the same thing, but only from one computer.
Someone had mentioned that a spyware remover may have removed a vital piece of my email stuff, but I run the same spyware remover on both computers..
I really need to get at my email..
 

eluminator

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[ QUOTE ]
Pydpiper said:

I really need to get at my email..

[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to see your e-mail, I presume you can do that with your web browser.

I believe you said you have two e-mail accounts. Can Outlook access the other account?
 

Lurker

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Every time I hear about problems using Outlook, I am glad I switched to Gmail. You might consider that as a robust solution. You'll never use Outlook again.
 

eluminator

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But you don't need to switch to Gmail to access your POP account (including Hotmail) with a browser. I've never see one that wouldn't let you use a browser, and I've seen many. To be precise, I guess Hotmail is an IMAP account, whatever that is, not POP.

Actually I like using an e-mail client, and many people do. I have Outlook and Outlook Express. I usually use Outlook Express because I'm more familiar with it, and it seems simpler to me than Outlook. A web based mail system may make more sense if you have a persistent, wideband internet connection. For us slowpoke dialup folks, it could have disadvantages.

It seems that Microsoft is no longer allowing new customers to use Outlook, or any e-mail client with Hotmail, unless you pay for an upgrade. They claim it's an anti-spam thing.
 

Lurker

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[ QUOTE ]
eluminator said:
A web based mail system may make more sense if you have a persistent, wideband internet connection. For us slowpoke dialup folks, it could have disadvantages.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, dialup is the reason I switched to using a webmail service instead of a client like Outlook. I agree there are disadvantages and trade-offs no matter which way you go, but I found using Outlook on dialup that if someone sent me a large message containing photographs, the download could be so long that it would fail during the time that I am usually connected and therefore block the downloading of all other email messages. Unless you stayed connected for a very long time, you would think you were not getting any mail. Often these large messages were not even things I wanted to read, so with webmail, I can see all of my messages and ignore the bandwith hogs unless I am truly interested in their content. This may not sound like that bad of a problem for a savvy user, but I have a computer novice in my household who was absolutely unable to use email due to this problem. Now that I set it up for webmail, everything works smoothly for once. And additional benefits are that I don't ever mess with POP/IMAP settings and I can access from any computer.

The only real disadvantage is that you need to remain connected to browse your mail. Composing can be easily done offline in any editor, even Notepad, and then pasted into a message. The limitations have not proven to be an inconvenience, and are certainly outweighed by the benefits (for us anyway).
 

eluminator

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You've got a good point there. The SMTP protocol that is used to send attachments is really stupid. Binary files like pictures have to be encoded and their size increases. I don't remember how POP works, but it might be the same way.

As you probably know, there are alternative ways to send pictures. It seems that most cameras and printers, as well as photo labs that print your uploaded pictures, have software that upload pictures to their internet storage and then send an e-mail to whomever you want. The e-mail has a link to the pictures.
 

eluminator

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[ QUOTE ]
Pydpiper said:

Could it be a virus? How do I fix this?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry I haven't been very helpful.

For troubleshooting, there are a couple of things you can try. You may have tried them already.

Instead of clicking the Send/Receive button, you can click the little button next to it that has an arrow on it. This opens up more possibilities. You can select one account to send or receive, so you can try them one at a time.

Outlook Express, but apparently not Outlook, has a troubleshooter thing that will log all the "chatter" (commands and responses) that goes on between your e-mail client and the mail server. It produces a text file you can view with notepad.

If you want to try this, let me know. I can give you some advice. One thing I would do is set the Outlook Express options to not delete the e-mails from the server after download. Otherwise in the event that Outlook Express is successful, you will have all your mail in Outlook Express, but Outlook won't be able to get them. Actually there is a way to get Outlook to copy all the e-mails over from the Outlook Express inbox, in case this does happen.
 

14C

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If one of the automoatic updates was XP SP2 you now have a firewall installed and I think activated. Might want to check the settings on it to make sure it allows your email server through.
 
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