Important Information for Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 Users

The Microsoft Outlook team is notifying users via email about upcoming changes that will result in the inability to access email from @outlook.com, @hotmail, @live or @msn email accounts in Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Although I may be completely wrong, the notification implies to me that the Outlook.com Preview is ending and the final changes outlined by the Outlook team in May (New ways to get more done in Outlook.com) will be rolling out .

Regardless, after the changes have been made and email is no longer appearing in the Outlook client, users of Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010 will need to follow the steps documented in the email from the Outlook team, copied below, in order to to resume receiving email from those accounts.

Update 12DEC2015:  The links below now yield "Internal Server Error".  Fortunately, fellow Microsoft MVP Noel Burgess pointed me to another MVP's website which includes the needed information.  See Diane Poremsky's article, Outlook.com Migration Status.

"Hello,

In the next few weeks we’ll be making some updates that will impact your @outlook.com, @hotmail, @live, or @msn email account. Those changes will prevent your email from getting delivered to the Outlook desktop application you use. When you notice that you stop receiving messages, simply follow these two steps:

For Outlook 2003 customers:

1. Remove your email account from your Outlook 2003 desktop application 2. Re-add your email account to your Outlook 2003 desktop application

For Outlook 2007 customers:

1. Remove your email account from your Outlook 2007 desktop application 2. Re-add your email account to your Outlook 2007 desktop application

For Outlook 2010 customers:

1. Remove your email account from your Outlook 2010 desktop application 2. Re-add your email account to your Outlook 2010 desktop application

When the update happens, you may not be able to refer back to this email in your Outlook desktop application. We recommend bookmarking or saving the two links (remove and re-add) in steps 1 and 2 above that apply to the version of Outlook you’re using. Remember, you can always access this message by logging into your account at www.outlook.com at any time.

If you don’t know what version of Outlook you have, you can click here for instructions to find out.

Thanks for your understanding and continued use.

Sincerely, The Outlook team"

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Import Yahoo or other IMAP Mail to Outlook

For almost two years, I've read complaints by users of Yahoo email about a host of complaints, including difficulties with password resets, problems logging in, loss of features, spam filters not working, and more.

Tired of the problems with Yahoo email?  The Outlook Team has a simple solution.  Finally, Yahoo and many other IMAP-enabled email can be imported to your Outlook.com account. 

The steps are really simple.  Just go to your Outlook.com Inbox and click the "gear" icon in the upper right, selecting Options.  Next, click "Import email accounts" and select the option for Yahoo.

When the window below opens, merely choose from where you want to import your account.  Expand the Option link to select how you want to import your email.

While the import is being completed, you can learn more about forwarding Yahoo mail from the linked Yahoo KB Article, Automatically forward emails with Yahoo Mail.

When the process is complete, you will receive an email in your Outlook.com Inbox.

Now you can get all of your email in one place!  With rules, it is easy to direct mail to specific folders.

References:

• Outlook.com customers can now import their email from Yahoo Mail | Office Blogs
• Add a Yahoo! Mail or other IMAP account to Outlook.com - Outlook.com help

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Microsoft Account Aliases and Primary Email Account

When Microsoft announced in April the ability to sign in with any alias that you have connected to your account, it took second place to the addition of two-factor authentication.  As a result, the simplified process of adding and managing aliases may have been missed.

The change to Outlook.com in April provided the ability to sign in with any alias that has been added to your account as well as simplifying the process of adding and managing aliases.

With the change today, "Rename" is being replaced with the ability to make any of your aliases a primary alias.  Because it is possible to sign in with any alias, there is little need to use the option to change your primary alias, unless you want a different email name to show on your Microsoft devices. 

You can set up or manage aliases at https://account.live.com/names/Manage.

If you are confused between alias accounts and the old linked accounts, see Managing Formerly Linked Microsoft Accounts.

References

• A better way to manage aliases and primary email address for your Microsoft account
• Use aliases to add email addresses to your account

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Managing Formerly Linked Microsoft Accounts

Microsoft announced in June that starting in late July, the linked accounts feature was being eliminated from Outlook.com.  Linked accounts should not be confused with aliases.  

• An alias is an additional email address created within your primary account.  Alias addresses use the same inbox, contact list, and account settings as the primary account. 
• Linked accounts were completely separate e-mail accounts that were linked to your primary account with their own inbox, contact list and account settings.  After being linked, the linked accounts were easily accessible via a drop-down link from your account.

With the account(s) you had previously linked now only accessible by separately logging into those accounts, if you haven't done so yet, you may want to set up mail forwarding. 

Mail Forwarding

Forwarding email to your primary Outlook.com email account is not limited to Hotmail, MSN, Live or Outlook.  You can also send and receive email from Google, Yahoo! Mail Plus, or other services that use POP.

The only caveat for Microsoft services is that it is necessary to sign in to your forwarded account at least once every 365 days to prevent the system from closing the account. 

The basic steps for setting up mail forwarding from one Microsoft account to another are straight-forward:

1. Sign in to the previously linked account that you want to forward to your primary account.
2. Click the Options icon located in the upper-right corner and select "More mail settings".
3. Select "Email forwarding" from the Managing your account column on the left.
4. Select "Forward your mail to another email account".
5. Enter the email address for the main account. 
6. Decide if you want to "Keep a copy of forwarded messages in your Outlook inbox".
7. Click Save.
   
   
   
   
   

Caught in a loop?

In order to set up mail forwarding, you need to log out from your primary account and log in to the secondary account.  What if you discover that typing mail.live.com in the address bar takes you right back to the email account you thought you had just logged out from?  This is because you are not completely logged out of that account, most likely because you checked the box "Keep me signed in".

In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to completely clear all live.com cookies.  If you use a cookie manager program, there are ~5 cookies to be deleted.

The first is the cookie with the name of the mail server; e.g., blu###.mail.live.com, where ### is a letter or number(s).  The other cookies to remove are the following:   

home.live.com
live.com
login.live.com
mail.live.com

To manage cookies in Internet Explorer 10, see Delete and manage cookies in Internet Explorer.  Click the down arrow for IE9 or IE8:

To manage cookies in alternate browsers, see the instructions at the respective sites:

• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Opera
• Safari

Tip:  An easier way to access your other account is to use an alternate browser that you do not use to log in to your e-mail and it doesn't have the "Keep me signed in" box checked, use that browser to login to your live.com account and set up e-mail forwarding.

Remember when you are able to log in to the e-mail account that you want to manage, don't check the "Keep me signed in" box!

Additional information  on setting up mail forwarding is provided in this Microsoft help document at Set up your Gmail, Yahoo! Plus, or Microsoft email accounts in Outlook.com.

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Devasting Results from E-mail Scam

Graham Cluley reported a devasting story about 67-year-old Al Circelli who committed suicide after losing $50,000 to West African romance scammers.

"Circelli's son Peter says he stumbled across evidence that his late father had wired considerable amounts of money to Ghana, and discovered email messages and photos on his father's laptop supposedly from a woman called Aisha, who wanted to come to the USA to begin a new life and promised to bring a small fortune with her

According to media reports, "Aisha" needed money to be sent to her in Ghana via Western Union to pay for expenses - and when Circelli ran out of his own money, he took out credit cards in his son's name and stopped making mortgage payments.

Peter Circelli says that his father commited suicide on the day that "Aisha" was due to arrive in the USA but, of course, she never showed up. Bizarrely, an email message has been found on the dead man's laptop from a Ghanaian intermediary in the money transactions claiming that "Aisha" had also killed herself."

Let this be a wake-up call to anyone who has gullible family members. Make certain that they understand about phishing scams. Natural disasters, elections, tax time, holidays all result in a spew of new scams. Be sure to educate your family.

In addition to the references below, additional tips and information on phishing are available in these Security Garden posts.


References:

• Graham Cluley: Romance email scam drives father to suicide
• Microsoft Security: Avoid E-mail Hoaxes and Email Scams
• US-CERT Cyber Security Tip: Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Security, IE8, Internet Explorer, How-to, Firefox, Safety

, Phishing, Fraud

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Its Income Tax Time – Avoid Tax Fraud

The deadline for filing income tax returns in the U.S. is April 15. As that date approaches tax payers are anxiously searching references and online tax preparation services. Caution is advised because fraudsters and phishers thrive during this time of year.

The best authority for tax questions is the official IRS website, located at irs.gov. Just as Microsoft does not contact an individual directly about security updates, neither will the IRS use e-mail to communicate any personal information. (Telephone 1-800-829-1040 to determine if an IRS contact is legitimate.)

The same goes for unsolicited e-mails from a supposed tax-preparation company. Always expect that such e-mails are phishing attempts. To better understand phishing attempts, see How to recognize phishing e-mails or links.

Not everyone is in a position to afford the latest computer operating system. In the event you are still using Window XP, you will want to ensure that your computer is as secure as possible prior to using an online tax preparation service. A computer infected with a backdoor trojan or keylogger is an invitation to identity theft. To determine if your computer is infected, run a full-system scan with an up-to-date antivirus product such as Microsoft Security Essentials, the Windows Live OneCare safety scanner or ESET Online Scanner.

If you are filing your taxes online, it is important that you use as secure a browser as possible. I recommend either Internet Explorer 8 or Mozilla Firefox 3.6. Also make sure that the Web address begins with https.

Save and happy returns!

References:

• Avoid Online Tax Fraud
• How to recognize phishing e-mails or links
• Internal Revenue (IRS)
  

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Security, IE8, Internet Explorer, How-to, Firefox, Safety

, Phishing, Fraud


Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Cyber Security Awareness Tip of the Day: October 8

Until recently, the https setting for Gmail was hidden in options. In July, Google made the secure setting more accessible:

"We've added an option to Settings to always use https. If you don't regularly log in via unencrypted wireless connections at coffee shops or airports or college dorms, then you might not need this additional layer of security. But if you want to always use https, then this setting makes it super easy. Whenever you forget to type https://mail.google.com, we'll add the https for you. If you already have the https URL bookmarked, using this setting will ensure you access your account via https even when you don't use your bookmark. Any http link to Gmail (for example, the one at the top of Google.com) will be automatically redirected to https."

With the increase of families setting up wireless networks at home, Digger's tip of the day is most appropriate.

October 8 Tip of the Day

"If you are logging into gmail from a wireless network, start at https://gmail.com, rather than http://gmail.com, to make it harder for other people to read your email."

Note: As of the Google July posting, Google Toolbar and other Google apps were not yet compatible with https.

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Cyber Security Awareness Tip of the Day: October 5

Today's Tip of the Day comes from R-C (also known as "ravencajun" in the Computer Help Forum at GardenWeb. R-C's tip comes from a discussion on the large volume of spam and how the spammers get our personal e-mail addresses.

"One of the worst problems, and a big reason the spammers have our addy, is not using the blind carbon copy feature when forwarding emails. And unfortunately the ones that will do that are your trusted friends and family! I never forward an email that shows others email addresses it is just very very bad behavior and it shows no regard for the people whose addresses are being spread all over the net.

When I have people do that to me I politely ask them not to include my email address in those emails if they can not use the BCC feature. I in turn will not use theirs in that fashion either.

Sins of The Internet: Not Using Bcc
BCC for Privacy!
use BCC from now on"

For instructions on using the BCC (Blind Copy) feature in OE, see Using Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) in Outlook Express.

October 5 Tip of the Day

"If you have not been using BCC please do yourself and everyone else a HUGE favor and start using it now. Help stop the spammers from getting our addys. This should also reduce the number of infected emails arriving in your inbox."

Thank you, R-C!

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

F-Secure Reports "Spam is still a problem"

In a report today, Mikko of F-Secure indicated that a spammer is apparently concerned that an e-mail collecting spider might find their e-mail address (info@bulk-mail.org) and add it to a spam database. Because of that concern, Mikko illustrated how the spammer used info [at] bulk-mail [dot] org instead of info@bulk-mail.org.

I agree with Mikko that it is probably not a good idea to post info@bulk-mail.org to a public web page or they might get spam. Now wouldn't that be a shame if the spammer got spam?

See Mikko's report about info@bulk-mail.org at Do spammers get spam?

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Recognize the 5 Most Common Types of E-mail Scams

The Windows Live Hotmail team recently published a fantastic article providing not only examples but explanations on recognizing E-mail scams. A couple of the examples are Microsoft-specific, using a Hotmail and a "Microsoft Promotions" example. Apply the learnings in the examples provided and you may not only save getting your computer infected, but prevent identity theft as well.

Even if you are cautious and recognize scams, perhaps your "Great Aunt Emma" is gullible or too trusting. Take the time to share this information with that gullible aunt, trusting uncle or kindly neighbor who "only uses the internet to check her E-mail".

Windows Live Hotmail: Learn how to recognize the 5 most common types of E-mail Scams

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Trackback

Websense Reports Streamlined anti-CAPTCHA operations

Many websites and forums use "Captcha" features to keep spammers at bay. In an interesting report, Websense Security Labs illustrates how spammers have created bots capable of getting past the Captcha feature and sign up for Windows Live Mail accounts.

As reported:

"Websense believes that these accounts could be used by the spammers at any time for a variety of social-engineering attacks in future. A wide range of attacks would be possible using the same account credentials in other significant and extended Live services offered by Microsoft Corporation, such as Live Messenger (instant messaging), Live Spaces (online storage), etc."

See the illustrated report at Streamlined anti-CAPTCHA operations by spammers on Microsoft Windows Live Mail.

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

"You've Got Mail"

Yes, Microsoft said "you've got mail". The question is what mail?

Windows Live Hotmail

After some confusing renaming, it appears the evolution is complete from MSN Hotmail --> Windows Live Mail --> Windows Live Hotmail.

Read about all of the new Windows Live Hotmail features in the announcement, Microsoft Launches Windows Live Hotmail Worldwide.

For help and support with Windows Live Hotmail, go to the Email Support Space, described as the official technical support site for MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Mail (32-bit client). (What about 64-bit machines?)

Windows Live Mail

A bit more confusing is the announcement of the name change for Windows Live Mail Desktop to Windows Live Mail. From what I have ascertained, Windows Live Mail will eventually incorporate the features from OE, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail desktop.

To follow the developments and provide feedback, visit the new Windows Live Mail (client) Support Team Space:

"Welcome to customers of Windows Live Mail (desktop), and welcome to customers who are considering a migration from Outlook Express 6 and/or Windows Mail (Vista). Your client support team has built this site so we can keep you aware of late-breaking announcements, ask for your assistance when we're troubleshooting emerging issues, and finally request feedback on various issues involving the client."

Help and support for Windows Live Mail is available by submitting a Support Incident.

See the Windows Live Mail blog for general update information.

Confused? It will all fall in to place eventually. In the meantime, be sure you have updated Mozilla Thunderbird to 2.0.

To help you keep track of these pages plus the Beta mail programs, a new Windows Mail page has been added to Windows Vista Bookmarks.

Email Support Blog at Windows Live™ Spaces

Today Microsoft launched a brand new Email Support Blog located on Windows Live Spaces. From what I have seen on the support forums, this will be a welcome addition for people using Microsoft's e-mail programs, particularly MSN Hotmail. Support will also be provided for Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Mail for the desktop (the client).

Although there is no identification as we see at sites like the MSDN and TechNet team sites, "SidebarGeek" of MSTechToday identified the site as supported by the Hotmail/Windows Live Mail Team.

Because the team is just starting out, patience will be needed while they get organized. In the meantime, the information below was provided for reporting a technical issue preventing use of the email software.

Hotmail:

• Go to http://support.msn.com
• Select MSN Hotmail
• Submit an issue via the support e-form.

Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Mail desktop:

• Go to http://support.live.com
• Select Window Live Mail or Windows Live Mail for desktop
• Submit an issue via the support e-form

Help will be provided at the blog if no response has been received to a submitted ticket in 24 hours or you are still having a problem. Just post a comment, including the SRX number of the ticket.

Simple enough and a welcome addition.

Got Google Email? Update Firefox!

It has been reported that the problem that resulted in the 60 or so Google email users to lose all email and contacts in their Gmail accounts was a flaw in Firefox 2.0.0.0.

The update to Firefox 2.0.0.1 is available at Firefox. The update included a fixes for a number of vulnerabilities, making it a wise move to update, regardless of the Gmail problem.

See Garett Rogers report, Some Gmail accounts were cleaned out.