E-mail Issue

FZWG · #1 February 10th, 2003, 06:14 PM

Appreciate some assistance.

Trying to help a senior citizen, who is not computer savvy, and is having some e-mail problems. The account is an @msn.com account, and is web-based (it is not a @hotmail.com account). E-mail from the account can be sent to anyone except to other @msn.com accounts, which include her daughter and most of her friends. However, the individulal can send herself a message (@msn.com to @msn.com).

Outlook Express 6.0 is the e-mail client, and Internet Explorer 6.0 is used to connect to the Internet. Initially, last August, when the account was created, MSN Explorer was installed, but has since been removed from Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs.

Have talked to MSN tech support ad-nauseaum, and to this date, no solution. All they suggest is to remove the account from Outlook Express, and then Add it once again.

Anyone heard of any such issue, or have any suggestions to try?
Thanks in advance for the help.

**AnnMarie** · #2 February 11th, 2003, 04:47 AM

Hi FZWG - I think the MSN techies might be right. Her profile may have corrupted. Did you try it?

FZWG · #3 February 11th, 2003, 05:05 PM

Thanks for the reply, AnnMarie.

Removed and Added her account several times, and still, no-go.

However, followed a suggestion to use the following email address: username@email.msn.com vs using username@msn.com, and the email came through!!!!

Do you have some rationale as to why she can send the email with one address and not the other? Why is the adding of 'email' to the second half of the address make it go through? I have no clue!!

**AnnMarie** · #4 February 11th, 2003, 10:25 PM

Nope, me either, hopefully someone else can shed some light on this.

FZWG · #5 February 12th, 2003, 12:35 AM

AnnMarie,

These are some pieces of info that I found here and there, and by no means is gospel, but makes some sense:

MSN apparently is implementing a spam filtering system on its e-mail servers. The action is part of a set of anti-spam initiatives designed to protect MSN customers and the MSN web-based e-mail system from unsolicited commercial e-mail.

MSN uses certain conventions to differentiate between users with the old Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) e-mail accounts and those with new web based e-mail accounts. Since MSN no longer allows the creation of the old Post Office Protocol (POP3) accounts, these accounts are apparently now routed through a different server. Users with POP3 e-mail accounts are routed to userid@email.msn.com and users with web based accounts are routed to userid@hotmail.msn.com.

'Aliasing', so to speak, provides a 'false' but easy to remember email address. For example, an MSN member may think the email addresses is something like userid@msn.com but the address 'really' userid@hotmail.msn.com or userid@email.msn.com.

In the case of this individual, as long as MSN mail is used within the web based system everything works fine. However, from one MSN server to another, userid@msn.com and userid@email.msn.com seem to be completely different addresses.

If you send e-mail to someone outside of MSN, this does not appear to be an issue.

**AnnMarie** · #6 February 12th, 2003, 04:29 AM

Hmmm...they are not making easy for the average computer user are they. Thanks for that information FZWG