wink wink,
Hotmail is not very reliable anymore. I have heard of many problems with it going down and emails being delayed for up to a couple hours before they are delivered.
From your posts in this thread, it sounds like your better half has not tried to use the browser function from hotmail for sending and receiving email. If he/she were using the browser, there would be no need for SMTP.
If he/she wanted to use Hotmail in OL or OLE, he/she would be using the POP3 service. Downloading the email via POP3 is simple, because the account settings do not change, no matter where you. Sending email is a different story. You need the SMTP information from the ISP he/she is currently logged on to the internet in order to send email. That ISP might even require him/her to use the current user name and password for the account he/she is logged on to the internet with, when sending email though their servers if the email name he/she is using (in this case his hotmail address) is different from the account he/she used to log on to the net. (I know it sounds confusing. Let me make up an example.)
His/Hers Email Account we will call:
[email protected]
The ISP he/her is currently at we will call:
www.northpole.com
Username/password for this ISP we will call: Santa/Clause
Since he/she has an account at this ISP they would give him an email account (whether he uses it or not):
[email protected]
SMTP for this ISP we will call: smtp.northpole.com
Ok, so your better half is logged on to the internet though the
www.northpole.com ISP. He/She wants to send email via his/hers hotmail using the POP3/SMTP. In OL or OLE you need to have the SMTP info for this ISP entered for outgoing mail, in this case smtp.northpole.com. If when he/she sends the email a popup asked for username and password, it is not asking for the username and password for the
[email protected], it is asking for the one at that ISP, since the ISP can tell the email is being sent by
[email protected] and not from
[email protected]. So to verify who is sending email they ask for the user name and password, which in this case is santa/clause.
There are other options, and hotmail does not need to be used at all. Most ISPs offer web based email access from anywhere in the world. Your home ISP should have a way to log on from anywhere and send and receive email though a browser. Then you do not need to use hotmail at all. If that is not an option from your ISP, then try another browser based email provider like yahoo.co.uk just so he/she has a backup to keep in touch with you.
Take Care,
Richard