As many Hotmail users know, Hotmail was replaced with Outlook on April 3, 2013. Since then, I’ve encountered numerous problems like not being able to sign in, or it’s super slow. There was an apology letter that was sent to every Outlook.com account holder, but look at their status history report. With so many years of technology behind them, how come they are having so many technical issues? I know that those who were using their Hotmail account for business purposes were effected badly. Luckily, I didn’t have to face that problem, but it was still a pain not having my email accounts from Outlook fail.

I’ve also noticed that it requires me to give them my phone number for security reasons. I avoided it until it started to count down the times…like you have 7 days left until you are required to put in the info…This sounds like Gmail/Google asking for your number all the time. Luckily, it does give you the option for authenticating it with another email address instead. Try using one that you don’t use often. It’s likely for them to track things rather than for your ‘security’ reasons.

With Google and Outlook issues with privacy growing, I have been talking to someone who is in IT and is against all of the ‘tracking’ and ‘recording’ of all info, whether they are looking closely at it individually or not, he says it will come and haunt you one day. So he’s been looking more into those that are encrypted and private.It sounds great, but switching email accounts isn’t all that easy. I’ve avoided getting those .shaw or .telus accounts because what happens if you leave their service? You have to change your email address. Not only that, but you lose all your emails. I’ve never understood why anyone uses them in the first place.

Anyways, it’s come to my attention that we need to be more aware of what’s going on around us. Also, it’s a good idea to have different emails on different accounts, or forward them to another. This doesn’t solve the problem with privacy, but at least you will be able to retrieve your emails from elsewhere.

Here is the Status History for problems that impacted a large number of customers in the past 60 days.
August 2013
August 14 – August 15
Outlook
You might have issues syncing email with your mobile device.

August 14
Outlook
You might have issues syncing email with your mobile device.
Resolved
August 14
SkyDrive
Users may experience delays in receiving emails with links to files shared with them and other SkyDrive notifications.
Resolved
August 14
SkyDrive
Users may experience delays in receiving notification emails.
Resolved
August 14
SkyDrive
Services such as Hotmail, Messenger, and SkyDrive are experiencing technical difficulties. We appreciate your patience as we work on the problem.
Resolved
August 14
People
Address book change notifications may not be properly delivered to Hotmail for some customers resulting in out of date contacts on Outlook.com
Resolved
August 14
Outlook
Outlook.com and Mobile users in BLU159,161-168 & BLU169- 178 and SNT145-148­ may experience problems accessing or sending email.
Resolved
August 10
SkyDrive
Sorry, you may experience intermittent issues attempting to purchase or update SkyDrive storage plans at this time. We’re experiencing technical difficulties, and working to restore the service as soon as possible. Please try again shortly.
Resolved
July 2013
July 31
Calendar
Some Calendar users may experience issues in sending, and/or receiving shared calendars.
Resolved
July 29
SkyDrive
SkyDrive is having a problem accessing items. You may experience delays when you add files, save documents, or share albums. You may receive errors while publishing content with Windows Photo Gallery in an online album and you might not be able to see all your files. We’re working to fix the problem as quickly as we can.
Resolved
July 25 – July 26
Outlook
Some users may experience issues while sending email from devices.
Resolved
July 24
Outlook
Mobile users may encounter issues in trying to login and access their outlook.com accounts.
Resolved
July 23 – July 24
Messenger
Users may be experiencing issues with connecting to Facebook or sending messages to Facebook buddies in Windows 8 messaging app, Windows Phone messaging hub and Outlook.com. We are actively working with Facebook to resolve this issue.
Resolved
July 22
SkyDrive
SkyDrive is having problems adding and saving files. You might experience delays when you add files, save documents, or share albums using Windows Photo Gallery.
Resolved
July 20
SkyDrive
SkyDrive is currently experiencing login issues. You may receive errors when attempting to login to your SkyDrive account. You may also receive errors while publishing content with Windows Photo Gallery in an online album.
Resolved
July 19
SkyDrive
SkyDrive is having a problem accessing items. You might not be able to see all your files. We’re working to fix the problem as quickly as we can.
Resolved
July 15
Outlook
We’re having sign-in problems. You might see an error message when you try to sign in.
Resolved
July 12 – July 14
Outlook
We’re having sign-in problems. You might see an error message when you try to sign in.
Resolved
July 11
Outlook
The latency issue has been addressed. This is now resolved.
Resolved
July 4
Messenger
Messenger is having sign-in problems. You might see error messages when you sign in, or the service might be slow.
Resolved
July 3
Outlook
We’re having sign-in problems. You might see an error message when you try to sign in.
Resolved
July 2
Outlook
Users may experience intermittent latency and errors when accessing their inbox
Resolved
July 1
Outlook
Outlook.com users in Europe may experience slow performance and intermittent errors.
Resolved
June 2013
June 27
Outlook
We’re having intermittent problems. Some email features might be slow.
Resolved
June 27
Outlook
We’re having intermittent problems. Some email features might be slow.
Resolved
June 20 – July 5
Messenger
This incident has now been resolved: Many users have reported issues with signing in and receiving Facebook messages in Windows 8 messaging app, Windows Phone messaging hub, and Outlook.com. We are actively working with Facebook to resolve the issue. Other contacts (e.g. Skype) should not be affected.
Resolved
June 14
Outlook
We’re having problems delivering email. Some messages might be delayed.
Resolved
June 14
Outlook
We’re having problems delivering email. Some messages might be delayed.
Resolved
June 14
Outlook
We’re having problems sending email. You may also experience issues while attaching documents to the e-mail.
Resolved
June 7 – June 12
People, Messenger
Customers may experience issues with the People web service. They might not be able to see or load contacts. This issue is affecting users on People.live.com, Outlook.com, Skydrive.com and WebIM. We are actively working to fix the problem.
Resolved