Windows Live Mail did not work since last Thursday why

Question

Windows Live Mail did not work since last Thursday why

Lillian Stanley 0

Windoows Live Mail don't work since last Thursday can you fix it please.....

Matthew Evans 0 Reputation points

2026-09-10T22:59:17.8833333+00:00

My windows live won't bring up my finger print to sign in

2 answers

Your answer

Matthew Evans 0 Reputation points

2026-09-10T22:59:17.8833333+00:00

My windows live won't bring up my finger print to sign in

Answer 1

Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Essentials are retired products and no longer supported. Updates for Windows Live Mail 2012 are no longer offered, and Windows Mail itself has been removed from newer versions of Windows. This can cause Windows Live Mail to stop working reliably from one day to the next.

The recommended mitigation is to reinstall Windows Essentials (which includes Windows Live Mail) or move to another mail program that can read .eml and .nws files.

If Windows Mail has been removed on the system, entry points and associations for mail will no longer work, and a different email application must be installed and set as the default mail handler.

References:

Answer 2

Vikki-T 9,850 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Lillian Stanley,

I understand how inconvenient this is, especially if Windows Live Mail had been working normally before last Thursday.

To narrow this down, could you let me know a bit more about what happens when you try to use it?

Which version of Windows are you using right now?
When you say “Windows Live Mail”, do you mean the Windows Live Mail desktop app, or do you mean an Outlook.com / Hotmail / Live email account that you were using inside that app?

Please note that Windows Live Mail is from an earlier generation of Microsoft mail applications. Since that product is no longer in active support, some connections with modern mail services may not work as expected. If you prefer, you can keep using webmail for now and consider Outlook for Windows or Outlook.com as a supported alternative.

Thank you so much for your understanding.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Lillian Stanley 0 Reputation points

2026-04-09T09:40:58.3233333+00:00

How come Windows Live Mail was working last Thursday please re connect it
Vikki-T 9,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-10T04:04:19.5766667+00:00

Hi Lillian Stanley,

I understand your concern.

To clarify, if you are referring to the Windows Live Mail desktop app, it belongs to Windows Essentials 2012, which is no longer a supported Microsoft product. Since support ended on January 10, 2017, it is no longer maintained as an active mail client.

If you are referring to an Outlook.com / Hotmail / Live account used inside Windows Live Mail, Microsoft previously shared that Windows Live Mail 2012 does not support the protocols used by the newer Outlook.com infrastructure. For now, please try accessing the mailbox through Outlook.com in a web browser. If you would like to continue using a desktop mail app, Outlook for Windows would be the supported alternative.

Please note that this is a user-to-user support forum. Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas.

Thank you so much for your understanding.