Bridging Windows Live and Office Outlook

May 5, 2010 15:33 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has introduced a new version of a tool that allows users to seamlessly bridge its email service with its mail client. Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 is designed to connect Windows Live and Office Outlook, early adopters having already had the chance to test drive the release, which had been in Beta development stage for the past several months. Designed to replace Outlook Connector 12, Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 brings to the table a range of enhancements that will undoubtedly convince users of the previous version of the tool to upgrade.

”If you have been using Outlook Connector 12.1, you already know that it enables you to manage your Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages, calendar, and contacts from within Outlook,” stated Alessio Roic, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Outlook. “Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 introduces several improvements. For example, you might notice after upgrading that the connection to Hotmail is more reliable than before, and issues such as blank messages being synchronized to Outlook have been fixed.”

Most importantly, the latest version of the Outlook Hotmail Connector has been tailored to the most recent iteration of Office Outlook. As many of you already know, Office 2010 was released to manufacturing on April 15. Of course, Outlook 2010 also RTM’d as it is an integral component of the productivity suite. Microsoft is offering Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 for the 32-bit (x86) versions of Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 and also for the 64-bit (x64) flavor of Office Outlook 2010.

Roic underlined a few changes, among which: “Junk filter settings. Your safe sender, blocked sender, and safe recipient lists are synchronized between Outlook and Hotmail. Integrated Send/Receive. Send/receive works just as it does for your other Outlook accounts. Integrated connection status. The Hotmail account status appears in the Outlook status bar. Rule support for secondary accounts. Rules can be applied to your Hotmail account in Outlook, even if it is not your primary Outlook account. Sync your drafts. The Outlook Drafts folder synchronizes with the Hotmail Drafts folder.”

Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector 14.0 is available for download here.