Steve Wiseman from IntelliAdmin has written an excellent tutorial on “How to add your Hotmail account to Microsoft Outlook“.
Check Hotmail using Outlook Express
Any person is able to configure their Microsoft Outlook to receive Hotmail emails with the step by step guide accompanied with graphics.

However, I would like to add in another important requirements before you can start receiving Hotmail emails from your Outlook.

Microsoft requires you to upgrade your normal Hotmail account to MSN Hotmail Plus by subscription.
By paying $19.95 yearly, you’re getting extra storage space with a huge 2 gigabyte (GB) inbox, large file attachments up to 20 megabytes, a cleaner look with no graphical ads for a more streamlined interface and accessing your Hotmail account with Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

If you configure your Microsoft Outlook to receive Hotmail without subscription, you will get an error message stating “Task ‘Hotmail: Folder:Inbox Synchronizing headers.’ reported error (0×800CCCF6) : ‘The server responded ‘Access to Hotmail via Outlook or Outlook Express now requires a subscription. Please sign up at http://join.msn.com/general/Email’. ‘

From a comment below, ramdrive said that he was able to use Outlook Express with Hotmail WITHOUT subscription. I tried setting up my Hotmail on my Outlook Express and got the same error message “Access to Hotmail via Outlook and Outlook Express now requires a subscription. Please sign up at http://join.msn.com/general/Email

Do take note that if you’ve subscribe to the Hotmail Plus account, you’ll have a hard time trying to cancel the subscription. See here on how to cancel your MSN Hotmail Plus subscription.

In summary, you MUST have a MSN Hotmail Plus subscription in order to receive emails from your Hotmail via Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

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