There are a number of posts about the demise of WLM 2012 without any real conclusion.
The following is from the Microsoft website and appears to indicate that any other client using POP or IMap will work OK, does anyone have any thoughts on this as at the moment we are testing eM Client for downloading mail from both Hotmail and Outlook.com?
Who needs to take action?
Anyone who currently uses Windows Live Mail 2012 to connect to Outlook.com needs to switch to an alternate email application or start accessing their email via web browser. People who use Windows Live Mail 2012 to connect to email services other than Outlook.com, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or other services that use POP3 or
IMAP protocols, do not need to take action. Outlook.com users who do not use Windows Live Mail 2012 also do not need to take action.
Well, in my case when my Windows 10 computer crashed while I had Windows Live Mail 2012 open, Windows Live Mail 2012 would no longer boot-up, period. It would simply state Windows Live Mail 2012 stopped working and leave me no choice but to close the app. I tried uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling and it made absolutely no difference - error message every time.
The crash was due to unrelated software misbehavior that seems to have been fixed via Windows Update, currently. I also remember I had to do some tweaking just to get Windows Live Mail 2012 to work with Windows 10 when I upgraded from Win 8.1. So, Windows Live Mail is becoming a troublesome application to deal with. While Microsoft may suggest those who have email accounts that do NOT used Outlook.com can still used Windows Live Mail 2012, the application is no longer supported, and one could find themselves with my experience, should their computer crash while it is open. In my view, it’s simply better to jump to something more stable, such as eM Client or some other that can also handle several email accounts from different providers.
I had to find an alternative in order to get any emails at all from my 4 accounts, two from Comcast, one from Hotmail (which uses Outlook.com), and one from Gmail. Yes, I could and did go to each account location separately several times a day until I found eM Client would do the very same thing as Windows Live Mail and could pull in all my created folders/saved emails, calendar events and contacts from Windows Live Mail.
That’s when I switched and gave Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail the boot. Those not wanting problems in the future with Windows Live Mail 2012 might want to take some time to at least consider a different, more reliable email client. Especially Windows 10 users.
I am already moving away from WLM 2012 and testing out eMclient.
It does seems excellent but my only worry is whether it will continue to work when Microsoft end the WLM service at the end of June. Nobody seems to have the definitive answer to that one yet.
Not surprising the WLM is ending. Microsoft is getting really aggressive now in pushing people to Windows 10. While a number of users are going to jump to Mac as a result, most will be forced to stay with Windows unless the corp world get’s on MS’s case.
Windows 10 is actually a very good OS, arguably the best Microsoft has developed. It supports DirectX 12 for those graphics cards that use it, and that’s better for those with modern gaming computers. It’s also slightly faster than both Windows 7 and 8. And it has some new features that some might appreciate, like the ability to set what drives receive new applications, documents, music, pictures or videos. Couldn’t easily set a path for those before Windows 10, but now one just needs to go into Settings/System/Storage and set the hard drive for each. Default is C:, of course. Just an example of a nice feature.
What’s bad about Windows 10 isn’t really about Windows 10. Microsoft’s Edge browser is so geekish that it’s hard for almost anyone to use without spending time figuring it out. Too, the Windows Mail app is the worst mail client ever for anyone used to using Windows Live Mail 2012, yet that is what Microsoft tries to push WLM users to use. Is Microsoft daft? It sure seems like they are.
So, my issue is with Microsoft and their lack of good sense, but the Windows 10 team did a really good job. Other Microsoft teams… not so much.
I use Windows 7 on my main desktop computer but have Windows 10 on two laptops.
Windows 7 is staying on my main computer so that I have at least one computer where I have control over.
I don’t like the Mail app on Windows 10 and need a good desktop mail application such as EM Client that will operate on both Win 7 and 10. I also need to be able to easily synchronise the EM Client settings and Local Folders on the three computers which is easy to do.
I had been using Thunderbird since WLM went off the rails but have found that its iMAP operations with Hotmail were a bit flakey.