Resolved Can't access my Hotmail account with Windows Live Mail 2012.

I 'refreshed' my laptop with Win 8.1 x64 and since then, I can't setup my Hotmail account with WLM (which was working before). There is no problem using Outlook.com with WLM and my Outlook.com account is listed there. There is no automatic Hotmail ( or any other additional accounts) setup available for me and I have to enter all of the servers data etc. manually. I have tried following the setup suggestions on different sites and have used incoming server addresses like...pop-mail.outlook.com and pop3.live.com and outgoing server addresses like smtp.live.com and smtp-mail.outlook.com with the appropriate ports etc. I have my Hotmail account setup in WLM with my desktop running Win 7 and tried to use it as a guide, but the setup is quite different and doesn't have the same server input requirements.
How can I access my Hotmail account since Outlook.com has taken it over?
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Have stopped using WLM or any of its variant a long time back.

If you want a very good and free alternative, try Thunderbird.

 

Thanks for your input. I'm assuming that with Firebird, I will be able to get my Hotmail.
My Hotmail comes in separately WLM. I guess I have 2 separate accounts. All emails have 'myname@hotmail.com'. I have to click the Hotmail Inbox to see what emails I have. Right now, I can only access my Hotmail on my desktop which is running Win 7.
Microsoft has really messed things up for me!!

 

In Live Mail, my Hotmail account is still intact. I am using Windows 7 though.

 

You can access Hotmail mail with Thunderbird. Not a problem.

 

I hate to pester you, but I want to be sure that I won't get more problems like I did by doing a 'refresh'. I'm assuming that I would have to delete WLM before/after installing Firebird? Will Win 8.1 be affected without WLM?

 

You don't need to delete/uninstall anything before installing Thunderbird. You may also import the emails already in the WLM into Thunderbird.

Importing and exporting your mail

 

Thanks so much!! Thunderbird is up and running!!