Microsoft plans to block Hotmail access in Outlook Express

Microsoft has announced that the DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol will be switched off for Windows Live Hotmail on June 30, 2008. Microsoft will only support the DeltaSync protocol for the synchronization of Web services with off-line clients. The software vendor says that this protocol is far better than DAV for accessing large inboxes because the client can query the changes since the last session without having to download the headers of all messages. Microsoft simply finds DAV too inefficient now that Hotmail offers 5 gigabytes of storage.

A number of email programs use DAV as an interface to Hotmail because free accounts at Hotmail do not allow access via the standard POP3 and IMAP protocols. Microsoft's Outlook Express is one of the programs that will then no longer be able to access Hotmail accounts. Microsoft will not be publishing a new version of Outlook Express that supports DeltaSync. The vendor recommends that people switch to Windows Live Mail. Hotmail will still be accessible using the full version of Outlook via the Office Outlook Connector.

(trk)