I created a new Outlook.com email address instead of renaming existing. How can I free up the new account?

I've found a solution. 

Please be sure to create testing account to verify below steps before applying to your real account.

Assumptions: you have both account@hotmail and account@outlook email accounts, and account@outlook was NOT previously made as alias and deleted

Description: to free the @outlook email account, you can rename ("Update email address") it to another email address (e.g. @gmail), and then close the updated email account. But it seems to be a bug in MS email service, not sure when it will be fixed.

Step 1. <gmail> apply for accountXXX@gmail in gmail (or other email supplier)

Step 2. <outlook> Login account@outlook, click "your name" at top-right of the browser, and choose "account settings", and then click "Update email address", and change your email account to accountXXX@gmail

Step 3. <gmail> in gmail, open the new verification email, click the url, and login your outlook using accountXXX@gmail account

Step 4. <outlook> It will prompt that you are ready to use your new account. DO NOT CLOSE THIS WINDOW, AND DO NOT LOGIN AGAIN. You will find your name at top-right of the browser, click your name and choose "Account settings", and "close account" immediately.

NOTE: if you login again after verifying accountXXX@gmail, the old account@outlook will be made as alias of  accountXXX@gmail, and previous work will be wasted.

Step 5. <outlook> login account@hotmail, click the gear icon and choose "more mail settings". And then, click "Create a outlook alias" (keep @hotmail as login account) or "Rename your email address" (use @outlook as login account afterwards, and @hotmail will be made alias), you will find that account@outlook can be used.

Step 6. <gmail> terminate accountXXX@gmail account in gmail, and do not waste google resources...

Please to noted, when I used testing accounts to verify previous steps, I failed in the following 2 cases

1. account@outlook was previously deleted as alias, due to previous solution to wait 30 days to free alias...
2. In Step 4, logged in again, and account@outlook was made as alias after login... I'm not sure if making the @outlook the login address and start all over again from step 1 would help or not. [NOTE: to change @outlook from alias to login address, it has to be deleted from the alias list, and "rename" accountXXX@gmail to the deleted @outlook name.]

I would also like to rename my live account to an already existing outlook.com email i created.

Please provide us an option to do this.

Yup, count me in.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-profile/rename-livecom-microsoft-account-to-an-existing/3f36ad0e-df7c-4912-b29a-7399be7b33c9

We need a way to rename our @live.com or @hotmail.com Microsoft account to an existing @outlook.com account without waiting and without the risk of loosing the @outlook.com name we reserved.

That doesn't work. You cannot (currently) switch a Live or Hotmail account to an outlook.com account unless that outlook account either did not exist previously or has been closed for at least 270 days, even if you are the owner of that outlook.com account (which is the problem me and everyone in the links is experiencing).