HTTPS Support added to Outlook Hotmail Connector

In our continued effort to improve the quality of the connection between Windows Live Hotmail and Microsoft Outlook, we have released an update for the Outlook Hotmail Connector.

The main addition in this update is the support of the HTTPS protocol for all communication between Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Hotmail, Calendar, and Contacts. Using a connection with HTTPS, helps you be even more confident that your account is safer from hijackers, and that your private information remains private. HTTPS is a standard for sensitive Internet content, and you’ll find it commonly used by banks, online merchants, and email providers such as Hotmail. HTTPS uses a certificate on the server to make sure that your computer is communicating with the intended server.

To start to use HTTPS with your Hotmail account, install the latest version of Outlook Hotmail Connector. No other changes are required in Outlook or on the Windows Live site.

Additionally, this update addresses reliability issues reported by users like you.

As a side note, we have listened to your feedback on our version terminology — we previously referred to each release with an incremental version such as “14.1” or “14.2”. However, the version information for the Outlook Hotmail Connector continued to use a 14.0.XXXX.YYYY version system. Beginning with this release, we’ll refer to each release exclusively by its version number found in the “About Outlook Hotmail Connector” dialog box. The version number for this update is 14.0.6106.5001. To determine which version is installed on your computer, see the end of this article.

Here is an overview of the changes in this update:

Overall

  • All communications between Outlook and Windows Live services (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) use the HTTPS protocol.
  • We fixed an issue in which the user was prompted to remove folders that used names longer than 30 characters or that contained invalid characters even after the folder was removed.
  • We fixed several stability and reliability issues.

Calendar

We fixed the following issues:

  • Some calendar meetings and appointments series with specific exception patterns caused error 8004a164 during first synchronization which blocked additional calendar synchronizations.
  • Users couldn’t remove recipients of a meeting series from an exception to the series.
  • Flagged mail items would continue to prompt with a reminder value even after it was dismissed.

Mail

  • We fixed an issue in which users couldn’t send email messages if the recipient address was copied and then pasted from a contact.

Contacts

  • We fixed an issue in which street address fields only synchronized from the server one time.

Installing Outlook Hotmail Connector

We recommend that users download this updated version of the Connector. However, for now, this is an optional update and you can continue to use your current version of Outlook Hotmail Connector. When this update becomes required, you’ll see a notification in Outlook.

To manually install the Outlook Hotmail Connector, do the following:

  1. Go to the Microsoft Download Center using the applicable link for your computer.

    For Outlook 2010, Office Outlook 2007, or Office Outlook 2003 32-bit:

    Outlook Hotmail Connector for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 32-bit

    For Outlook 2010 64-bit:

    Outlook Hotmail Connector for Outlook 2010 64-bit

  2. Download the setup file by clicking Download next to OutlookConnector.exe, and then save the file to your computer.
  3. Double-click the downloaded file.
  4. Follow the instructions on your screen to complete the installation.

How to verify the version that is installed

Outlook 2007 and Office Outlook 2003

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. On the Outlook Hotmail Connector menu, click About Outlook Hotmail Connector.

The version appears in the About Outlook Hotmail Connector dialog box. If the version is equal to or higher than 14.0.6106.5001, the latest version of Outlook Hotmail Connector is installed.

Outlook 2010

  1. Start Outlook.
  2. Click the File tab.
  3. Click Additional Information and then select About Outlook Hotmail Connector. If you have multiple accounts, you might have to select your Hotmail account from the menu at the top.

The version appears in the About Outlook Hotmail Connector dialog box. If the version is equal to or higher than 14.0.6106.5001, the latest version of Outlook Hotmail Connector is installed.

On behalf of the entire Outlook Hotmail Connector team, thanks for trying the new Outlook Hotmail Connector!

-- Alessio Roic
Outlook Senior Program Manager

More info on Outlook and Hotmail integration:

Connecting to Hotmail accounts in Outlook 2010

New Outlook Hotmail Connector released

Hotmail accounts and RSS feeds in Outlook: An Out of Office
Casual special (video)


Microsoft Office Outlook Hotmail Connector overview

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Comments: (71) Collapse

  • @ Harry: STRONGLY agree

  • @ToniT

    Your suggestion worked like charm for me. Thanks!

    For others:

    I'm using 32bit W7 Professinal, and had my old connector dll becouse I reinstalled my sysmtem recently becouse of a motherboard change, and I did not formated C: drive so I have a windows.old folder with everithing what was installed on my old system. Maybe I can provide you guys the dll which i'm currently using but I don't know if that would suit to your system. Please let me know if you would try with the dll I'm using and than I will upload it somewhere.

  • Ok, read all posts here, so I uploaded the dll to hotfile. The link is here: hotfile.com/.../msconn_old.zip.html

    I hope it will help you guys.

  • Same issue here with the calendar sync errors (and incredible slowness).  Office 2003 SP3, XP SP3.  This is so frustrating!

  • Now suddenly everything is working again smoothly. No errors anymore and Live calender and tasks are working again. Didn't do anything. No going back to previous version or any tweak like disabling SSL. Looks like Microsoft had a magic hand or I've been lucky.

  • Please try to reproduce and acknowledge the following bug report:

    Hotmail account with a non default data file triggers a sync every minute

    social.technet.microsoft.com/.../c042e118-b58a-4783-a0e4-78f604e94a03

  • Hi All,

    I'm sorry about the issues many of you have been seeing over the past few days. We determined that the issue was caused by a server-side permissions problem that was rejecting requests to connect to the Windows Live Calendar service using HTTPS on a few of the Hotmail servers (most servers were not affected which is why not all users encountered this issue).

    We have fixed the issue on the server, and you only need to close Outlook, restart, and allow Outlook to sync your Hotmail accounts again. Please let us know if you are still seeing the issue after following these steps. No updates to the connector are needed.

    Thank you and again, we apologize for the inconvenience.

    Josh Meisels, Outlook Program Manager

  • Thanks Josh and Alessio--everything's working smoothly for me now!

    Del

  • Yeeeeees, it works. Thank You for the fix.

  • Thanks Josh!! This fixed my issues now Im a happy camper once again!

  • Thanks Outlook Team for fixing this issue so fast and the feedback!

  • @Outlook Team

    Please address the following bug report:

    social.technet.microsoft.com/.../c042e118-b58a-4783-a0e4-78f604e94a03

  • The download site is still serving up the old version of the 32-bit Connector. I have downloaded it several times, thinking that the mistake would be identified and corrected. As of today's date, it is still the old version.

    Steps to recreate the problem.

    1. Click on the link mentioned in the blog (www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx). The "Quick Details" on the download page say it should be 14.0.6106.5001.

    2. Click the Download button.

    3. Run the setup program OutlookConnector.Exe. Instead of the expected option to install, there is a dialog to "Change, Repair, or Remove Installation", with the "Change" button grayed out.

    4. Out of curiosity, I proceed with the "Repair" option. After restarting Outlook, there is no change in the version number in Outlook. It is still 14.0.5139.5001.

    5. In Windows Explorer, right click on the new download of OutlookConnector.Exe (i,e. the setup program) and check the Property Details. The file version is identified as 14.0.5136.5000.

    6. I happen to have the earlier version of the setup program in my downloads folder, which I downloaded on 6/10. Running the Windows file compare utility from the command line (fc /b), the old and new setup programs are identical.

    Hope this helps.

    Mike

  • To reply to my own post, the problem appears to lie with Google Chrome and not with the Microsoft download site. Since I read the blogs using Google Reader in Chrome, I followed the links and downloaded the file in Chrome. As reported above, for some reason, I kept getting the earlier file. Perhaps, this was because a file of the same name was already in my download folder. Who knows?

    In any event, after posting my comment, I thought to try downloading the file in IE and got the correct file, which installed correctly. Needless to say, I wish I had thought to do that first.

    My apologies for any inconvenience.

    Mike

  • MSchacter, we've had a few reports of users who try to download the latest version and get an older copy. It appears the culprit is a cached version of the file. Deleting your browser cache or using another browser generally works (as you found). Glad you found a solution!

    Josh Meisels, Outlook Program Manager

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