Thanks to brent3000 who posted this in our Back Page News forum, it seems Microsoft is permanently disabling the ability to receive Hotmail via Outlook Express from June 30th. The software giant recommended via email to its DAV protocol users, the free Windows Live Mail desktop utility as an alternative.
Thank you for using Microsoft® Outlook® Express. Our information indicates that you use Outlook Express to access a Windows Live Hotmail® e-mail account via a protocol called DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol). DAV, like POP3 or IMAP, is the way that a mail client communicates with a web-based mail server.
As a valued customer, we want to provide advanced notice that as of June 30, 2008, Microsoft is disabling the DAV protocol and you will no longer be able to access your Hotmail Inbox via Outlook Express. As an alternative, we recommend that you download Windows Live Mail, a free desktop e-mail client that has the familiarity of Outlook Express and much more. This next generation of free e-mail software will allow you to easily manage multiple e-mail accounts—including Windows Live Hotmail, plus other e-mail accounts that support POP3/IMAP. Better yet, Windows Live Mail integrates well with other Windows Live services, and downloads in minutes. After you provide your user name and password, you will automatically be linked to your Hotmail account, providing continued access to your email and contacts.
Windows Live Mail can completely replace Outlook Express, as it supports Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo! and POP accounts:
Windows Live Mail has superior Junk Mail Filters over Outlook Express, although the glass effect is not supported in Windows XP.