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

I also, and other people with me, have this issue. Would be great to get a simple solution, couldn't be that i hard you'd think.

That's not really helpful considering the problem in THIS thread is:

People made NEW outlook.com accounts because Microsoft was not clear on the process and NOW either want to merge those accounts with their old live.com accounts OR delete the new outlook.com account and not wait 270 days so they can bring it in as an alias...

Login to your newly created outlook.com account.

Click on the Small Settings Icon on the Top Right, then -> More Mail Settings.

Click on the below setting from the options.

"Sending/receiving email from other accounts"

Inbox>Options>Sending/receiving email from other accounts

Add your old Hotmail/Live account there, you can now receive your old mails in the new @outlook.com mailbox.

Hi vic2msn,

I don't want to sound dismissive, but what you've described is not what we are requesting. Forwarding emails from one account to another is not the same as changing your Live/Hotmail ID to an outlook account.

We are asking about changing our old Hotmail/Live accounts into Outlook accounts as per the welcome email from Microsoft. The problem we're having is that we created outlook accounts when we intended to "transfer" them and can now longer change to our preferred new IDs because they have already been taken (by us).

What is particularly painful is that we all know how simple it would be for Microsoft to reduce the "cooling off" period for closed/deleted Microsoft accounts for those that desire it. Having 270 days as the only duration is bizarre.

Some sort of input from Microsoft would be welcome. Suggested workarounds that don't achieve the result we're after are redundant.

same here, I have given out the new Outlook to potential employer and desperately need access to this address. I cannot wait 270 or in hopes it may or may not be available. There has to be a way to address this.

Clearly you do not understand what people are asking. We want to make our primary live/hotmail address an outlook address. What you are suggesting is forwarding email to the Outlook account, not converting the address to one. This does not move contacts, connections and Skydrive content.

MS was not clear on how to do this and people made a new Outlook account that uses the same username as their Hotmail/Live account so we cannot change the original account to Outlook.com as cancelling the Outlook account takes 270 days to clear from Microsoft's system. Please read the questions and concerns before you repeatedly flood this thread with the same generic answer over and over again when its not relevant.

I echo this...

I want my new Outlook.com address to be my PRIMARY Microsoft Account. I want to merge my old @Live.com address into this one and be done with it. I want all of my Microsoft services (including my 25 gigs of Skydrive) to be associated with my new Outlook.com address.