Windows Mail curiosities

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 03:19:23 -0700, "...winston?" wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:12:40 -0700, "...winston?" wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 16:50:50 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote:

Microsoft managed public email servers / domains are notoriously bad with regard
to anti-spam measures. You might consider switching to a Gmail account, their
anti-spam measures border on black magic.

When was the last time you actually used a MSFT account web UI for email ?

Outlook.com or Live.com or Hotmail.com or maybe earlier pre Hotmail
MSn.com ?

I suspect that you've fairly little knowledge of how the spam filters
work and what options are available for users or how the system
functions for spam, phish and malware.

That it Winston baby, come out swinging..... That is what I love about you.
"Ready, Fire, Aim"!

I'll take that as confirmation that you've less than stellar knowledge
on use of an Outlook.com web UI account and their related spam
filters...and pretty much places the earlier statement 'notoriously bad'
where it belongs - in the recycle bin.

You can take it anyway you like. I am not going to get into a ****ing contest
with you. The nasty, aggressive, anti-social nature of your post is downright
offensive.

You are not my wife or mother in-law, as much as you might wish to act like them
and I will not play your sick little game.


Feel free to leak wherever you wish but please try aiming at something
worthy of substantiation.

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the Outlook.com
filter is present thus any statement about it's effectiveness
(notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value to anyone in this
group.


--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

"...winston?" explained :
Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 03:19:23 -0700, "...winston?"
wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:12:40 -0700, "...winston?"
wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 16:50:50 -0500, "Neil Gould"
wrote:

Microsoft managed public email servers / domains are notoriously bad
with regard
to anti-spam measures. You might consider switching to a Gmail
account, their
anti-spam measures border on black magic.

When was the last time you actually used a MSFT account web UI for email
?

Outlook.com or Live.com or Hotmail.com or maybe earlier pre Hotmail
MSn.com ?

I suspect that you've fairly little knowledge of how the spam filters
work and what options are available for users or how the system
functions for spam, phish and malware.

That it Winston baby, come out swinging..... That is what I love about
you.
"Ready, Fire, Aim"!

I'll take that as confirmation that you've less than stellar knowledge
on use of an Outlook.com web UI account and their related spam
filters...and pretty much places the earlier statement 'notoriously bad'
where it belongs - in the recycle bin.

You can take it anyway you like. I am not going to get into a ****ing
contest
with you. The nasty, aggressive, anti-social nature of your post is
downright
offensive.

You are not my wife or mother in-law, as much as you might wish to act like
them
and I will not play your sick little game.


Feel free to leak wherever you wish but please try aiming at something worthy
of substantiation.

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the Outlook.com
filter is present thus any statement about it's effectiveness (notoriously
bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value to anyone in this group.

I have dealt with Outlook.com extensively as well, in fact we used to
use them to host a couple of email domains for businesses. They
absolutely suck when it comes to spam detection and email validation.
It was so bad we abandoned them and migrated to other services which
work FAR better.

Winston, you should not post after you have started drinking for the
day. It seems as if whenever you disagree with someone or if they post
a criticism of Microsoft you resort to ad hominem attacks and vitriol.

....winston‫ wrote:

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the
Outlook.com filter is present thus any statement about it's
effectiveness (notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value
to anyone in this group.

Trying to bring this back on-topic, just in case there's something that I
might be able to do that will fix my problem...

I'll admit to having very little experience with outlook.com, and would
appreciate any insights about its use. What I see as options in the
outlook.com settings is the equivalent of a "whitelist" where one can enter
the email addresses, and supposedly the URL of considered "safe". The
problem is that it doesn't work. Most mail from "safe" accounts still gets
bounced by outlook.com with the same error as before.

One anomaly that I've noted is that when setting up the Windows account, I
entered an alternate email address instead of a phone number. Mail from that
address is the one that is intermittent, mail sent from it is sometimes
bounced, sometimes not, even though that address is also in the "safe" list.

Is there something in those settings that I'm overlooking?
--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/9/2015 9:34 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 09:15:33 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote:

...winston‫ wrote:

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the
Outlook.com filter is present thus any statement about it's
effectiveness (notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value
to anyone in this group.

Trying to bring this back on-topic, just in case there's something that I
might be able to do that will fix my problem...

I'll admit to having very little experience with outlook.com, and would
appreciate any insights about its use. What I see as options in the
outlook.com settings is the equivalent of a "whitelist" where one can enter
the email addresses, and supposedly the URL of considered "safe". The
problem is that it doesn't work. Most mail from "safe" accounts still gets
bounced by outlook.com with the same error as before.

One anomaly that I've noted is that when setting up the Windows account, I
entered an alternate email address instead of a phone number. Mail from that
address is the one that is intermittent, mail sent from it is sometimes
bounced, sometimes not, even though that address is also in the "safe" list.

Is there something in those settings that I'm overlooking?

What is the domain (info to the right of the @) of the alternate email address?

You can check that domain for black listing using a tool like this:

http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

BTDT, and as I wrote earlier, all of the domains are 100% clean on such
services.

When you send an email which is bounced by Outlook.com, are you receiving an
"mail not deliverable, fatal error" notification?

Yes. I explained the results in more detail in earlier responses to Char
and Winston.

Can you post the full headers
of one of those notifications? You can sanitize your post of any personal
information if necessary.

Other than knowing that the mailer daemon gives a specific code that
indicates that the blockage is due to "someone at the domain" being on
their blocked senders list, is there some value to doing that (I don't
have those messages on this machine)? BTW -- the ISPs for those domains
say that they've had these blockage problems with Microsoft mail
services for years, and that even when fixed temporarily, the problem
recurs at some point.
--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/9/2015 11:42 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
(Much snipped)
On 3/9/2015 9:34 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 09:15:33 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote:

Other than knowing that the mailer daemon gives a specific code that
indicates that the blockage is due to "someone at the domain" being on
their blocked senders list, is there some value to doing that (I don't
have those messages on this machine)? BTW -- the ISPs for those domains
say that they've had these blockage problems with Microsoft mail
services for years, and that even when fixed temporarily, the problem
recurs at some point.

Having the headers and domain names would help diagnose the issue. For example,
if the originating domain has not established a proper domainkey (DKIM) or SPF
record, combined with suspicious mailing activity, these kinds of issues could
cause Outlook.com to bounce the mail.

I haven't verified those, but the lack of a proper DKIM or SPF would
impact all outgoing messages, likely resulting in frequent bounces from
other mail services, no?

Anti-spam / anti-malicious mail measures
rely on numerous factors, not just RBL. Additionally, if the mail were simply
suspected of being spam, it should be placed in a spam folder. For it to be
bounced completely is indicative of more significant configuration issues with
the originating server, malware-in-email distribution or overly draconian
restrictions at the receiving the mail server.

Just to eliminate some of these variables: the messages are not marked
as spam, they're never received and there are no malware-in-email issues
with the test messages. Some test messages were generated by the ISP for
those accounts, with the same bounced result.

There are a myriad of reasons for bouncing mail and the headers are a mandatory
component in diagnosing the issue. If posting the information is too onerous, I
will leave you in the capable hands of others.

I wouldn't say it's an "onerous" task, I just don't have any mailer
daemon message(s) on this machine. What would you suggest that I look
for when I next get one of those on the machine that was used for
testing the outlook.com mail?

--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/9/2015 1:29 PM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 13:05:03 -0400, Neil wrote:

On 3/9/2015 11:42 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
(Much snipped)
On 3/9/2015 9:34 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 09:15:33 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote:

Other than knowing that the mailer daemon gives a specific code that
indicates that the blockage is due to "someone at the domain" being on
their blocked senders list, is there some value to doing that (I don't
have those messages on this machine)? BTW -- the ISPs for those domains
say that they've had these blockage problems with Microsoft mail
services for years, and that even when fixed temporarily, the problem
recurs at some point.

Having the headers and domain names would help diagnose the issue. For example,
if the originating domain has not established a proper domainkey (DKIM) or SPF
record, combined with suspicious mailing activity, these kinds of issues could
cause Outlook.com to bounce the mail.

I haven't verified those, but the lack of a proper DKIM or SPF would
impact all outgoing messages, likely resulting in frequent bounces from
other mail services, no?

No. Different mail services are administered by different people who establish
different parameters of acceptability and tolerance for incoming mail. The
administrators of Outlook.com are using different malicious / annoyance mail
detection algorithms, parameters and tools than let's say Gmail.

Understood. I was only suggesting that outlook.com wouldn't likely be
the only mail service (or even one of a few) with this problem.

I would suggest you contact the postmasters of both the originating and
receiving domains. Send them the headers and ask if they can resolve the issues
for you. Regardless of what we might find in your headers, the resolution is
going rest with those who administer the mail servers, not with you or I.

You mentioned you contacted the originating domain administrators and they told
you they have had these issues with Microsoft administered servers for years.
Have they ever investigated the issue and contacted the Microsoft
administrators?

Again, understood. All of this was done before I posted the first
inquiry to this ng. As I mentioned in a previous message, they initiated
the steps to resolve this, saying that it is now in Microsoft's hands,
and that even if they fix the problem, it may not be permanent.

Have you tried setting up a Gmail account and seeing if you
experience the same problem there?

I have a Gmail account, but don't use it for business, so I haven't
tried sending mail from it. I may try it just for the heck of it, but as
mentioned before, the outlook.com account works with other outlook.com
accounts, so I think that the problems are due to some configuration on
Microsoft's part that I haven't seen how to fix.

I have administered numerous domains on numerous in-house servers over the
years, everything from Exchange, MDaemon, Groupwise, Domino to EIMS. Resolving
these kind of issues is possible for a postmaster, but it takes effort and
determination. If they can't make their mail work reliably with Microsoft, the
odds are they are permitting unacceptable mail to transit their servers or have
no idea how to properly configure their servers / domains.

Well, without casting aspersions about the operators, one of the
accounts is from an ISP/mail host I've used for about 20 years, and only
have this type of problem with one or two mail services every couple of
years. I was surprised to run into problems with outlook.com, but have
since heard from a number of folks that this isn't a rare phenomenon.
--
best regards,

Neil

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:02:10 -0400, Neil
wrote:
[...]
Have you tried setting up a Gmail account and seeing if you
experience the same problem there?

I have a Gmail account, but don't use it for business, so I haven't
tried sending mail from it. I may try it just for the heck of it,
but as

I thought it was more an issue of Gmail being able to receive emails
that are bounced by Outlook.com?

No... the problem is with incoming mail to Outlook.com from a few services
that are only ISP/web host/mail services. Outgoing from the outlook.com to
those accounts works fine, too.
--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/9/2015 4:02 PM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 9 Mar 2015 15:55:03 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:02:10 -0400, Neil
wrote:
[...]
Have you tried setting up a Gmail account and seeing if you
experience the same problem there?

I have a Gmail account, but don't use it for business, so I haven't
tried sending mail from it. I may try it just for the heck of it,
but as

I thought it was more an issue of Gmail being able to receive emails
that are bounced by Outlook.com?

No... the problem is with incoming mail to Outlook.com from a few services
that are only ISP/web host/mail services. Outgoing from the outlook.com to
those accounts works fine, too.

Yes, I could have been more clear. I will try again.

I am suggesting you attempt to email your Gmail account from whatever accounts
are having difficulty getting through to Outlook.com.

Oh... well, that has worked without problems for the last few years.
That's one more reason I was surprised by the outlook.com problems.

--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/9/2015 5:13 PM, Stormin' Norman wrote:

One other thought, the time on your system appears to be out of adjustment.

The time on my computers match the time in this zone. We just went to
"normal time" from "daylight savings time" yesterday. Perhaps that is
what you saw as being out of adjustment?
--
best regards,

Neil

Neil Gould wrote:
...winston‫ wrote:

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the
Outlook.com filter is present thus any statement about it's
effectiveness (notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value
to anyone in this group.

Trying to bring this back on-topic, just in case there's something that I
might be able to do that will fix my problem...

I'll admit to having very little experience with outlook.com, and would
appreciate any insights about its use. What I see as options in the
outlook.com settings is the equivalent of a "whitelist" where one can enter
the email addresses, and supposedly the URL of considered "safe". The
problem is that it doesn't work. Most mail from "safe" accounts still gets
bounced by outlook.com with the same error as before.

One anomaly that I've noted is that when setting up the Windows account, I
entered an alternate email address instead of a phone number. Mail from that
address is the one that is intermittent, mail sent from it is sometimes
bounced, sometimes not, even though that address is also in the "safe" list.

Is there something in those settings that I'm overlooking?

Add the sender to you contacts list and remove it from the Safe Senders.
The protective spam filtering is most likely seeing the content in the
email as suspicious. By adding the address to your contacts will provide
the option in the received message to 'Ok' future emails from the sender
for similar 'in-message' content.



--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

Stormin' Norman wrote:
If they can't make their mail work reliably with Microsoft, the
odds are they are permitting unacceptable mail to transit their servers or have
no idea how to properly configure their servers / domains.


+1
Also note:
http://mail.live.com/mail/postmaster.aspx

http://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx

--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

Neil Gould wrote:


No... the problem is with incoming mail to Outlook.com from a few services
that are only ISP/web host/mail services. Outgoing from the outlook.com to
those accounts works fine, too.

Fyi...Outlook.com can be persnickety if the MSFT account (Outlook.com,
Hotmail.com, Live.com, and MSn.com) online user profile is not fully
configured properly (i.e. missing time zone data) for the location of
the registered MSFT account.
- https://account.live.com


--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

none wrote:
"...winston?" explained :
It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the
Outlook.com filter is present thus any statement about it's
effectiveness (notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value to
anyone in this group.

I have dealt with Outlook.com extensively as well, in fact we used to
use them to host a couple of email domains for businesses.

Same question as requested earlier to another poser of Outlook.com spam
filter knowledge --.when was the last time you dealt with Outlook.com?

Any response though from your troll based approach of doling out
information with circumstantial and idiotic accusations falls in the
same category as claiming to have dealt with Outlook.com domains -
untruths without substantiation.



--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

none wrote:
"...winston?" explained :

It's still doubtful that any recent use or knowledge of the
Outlook.com filter is present thus any statement about it's
effectiveness (notoriously bad) is hardly worthy of belief or value to
anyone in this group.

I have dealt with Outlook.com extensively as well, in fact we used to
use them to host a couple of email domains for businesses. They
absolutely suck when it comes to spam detection and email validation. It
was so bad we abandoned them and migrated to other services which work
FAR better.


Same question as requested earlier to another poser of Outlook.com spam
filter knowledge --.when was the last time you dealt with Outlook.com?

Any response though from your troll based approach of doling out
information with circumstantial and idiotic accusations falls in the
same category as claiming to have dealt with Outlook.com domains -
untruths without substantiation.


--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps

Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 13:05:03 -0400, Neil wrote:
I wouldn't say it's an "onerous" task, I just don't have any mailer
daemon message(s) on this machine. What would you suggest that I look
for when I next get one of those on the machine that was used for
testing the outlook.com mail?


I have administered numerous domains on numerous in-house servers over the
years, everything from Exchange, MDaemon, Groupwise, Domino to EIMS. Resolving
these kind of issues is possible for a postmaster, but it takes effort and
determination. If they can't make their mail work reliably with Microsoft, the
odds are they are permitting unacceptable mail to transit their servers or have
no idea how to properly configure their servers / domains.


+1

@Neil
Also see:

http://mail.live.com/mail/postmaster.aspx

http://mail.live.com/mail/services.aspx


--
....winston
msft mvp consumer apps