Once you click another message, however, the song stops. Click Cancel to play the song in your Inbox instead. When you open a message with a music file attached to it, Hotmail prompts you to save or open the file in Windows Media Player. Gmail's nine months of inactivity is the most generous of the major e-mail services.Īmong the features that you can't find elsewhere at this point, Windows Live Hotmail includes a built-in audio player. Still, after having lost several years' worth of messages by ignoring an old account in the past, we'd prefer a service without a cutoff date. And instead of shutting down your account after a month of inactivity, Microsoft lets you ignore your e-mail for 120 days. Whether you choose the Classic or new look, Windows Live Mail offers 2GB of free storage and up to 4GB for $19.99 per year. The Classic view, which you can revert to at any time, better resembles the old layout of Hotmail. Thankfully, we didn't encounter setup or sign-in snags as we did with AOL Mail.

Microsoft also estimates the strength of your password and won't let you use your name for that purpose. We didn't even have to step through any questionnaire minefields asking if we wanted to sign up for newsletters. You may also be able to use an old Microsoft Passport ID, should you have set one up years ago. You'll need to pick a Windows Live ID, which you can use to access other Windows Live services including Windows Live Messenger. Signing up for Windows Live Hotmail takes several minutes. Microsoft also is building bridges between desktop and Web-based e-mail with both the Outlook Connector beta synchronizer and the Windows Live Mail beta download. Unlike Yahoo and Gmail, Microsoft's popular e-mail service has emerged from beta testing as a final product for all users to try-although more features are likely to trickle in soon.

Other convenient tweaks include the capability to drag and drop messages into folders. Like Yahoo, the new Windows Live Hotmail uses a blend of dynamic HTML and JavaScript-dubbed AJAX-to preload messages so that you don't have to wait long for content to appear. Much like the ongoing renovation of Yahoo Mail beta, the MSN Hotmail service has undergone a face-lift that makes it resemble a desktop e-mail client.

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