I logged into my account this morning and everything was fine. I just got back home, logged in, and what I saw looks like a newly created account!!

All my emails and folders are gone and I have a "Getting started with Windows Live Hotmail" message!

Help!

Now it's starting to fill up with junk. Hopefully, this will not affect your ability to restore the email account and folders.

The only thing that has remained is the contact list. Everything else is gone.

@ bluecree

To look in to what happened to your e-mails, I would need your Windows Live Hotmail e-mail address. Please include it when you reply to this post.

The address is {removed email address}

Thanks.

I've checked your account and found out that it appears to be a newly created one. I also come to think that you're referring to another account of yours, because there's no contact information intact on it which is contradicting to the one you stated. If I'm correct, can you post your other account's e-mail address?

You're kidding, right?

The account {removed email address} has been in existence for nearly a year until it suddenly reset on June 26th. Furthermore, there are 16 contacts on the contact list. I just logged in to make sure they are still there and I'm also logged into the Live Messenger right now, as I have done nearly every day for the past year. Some of those contacts have been there for a long time. You should be able to check the dates they were added just to confirm.

@ bluecree

Our records show that your account was marked Inactive. This is the reason why you lost your messages. Sad to say, they can’t be recovered.

How did it get marked inactive?

First you tell me it's marked as a newly created account. Now you tell me it was marked inactive. I use this email account EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last year.

I log in through http://hotmail.com and I also log into the Live Messenger with this account every day.

How can it possibly be marked as INACTIVE?

Just to clarify, I have been logging into the account EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last year through http://hotmail.com to receive and send emails.

bluecree, free Hotmail accounts become inactive if you don’t sign in for more than 270 days or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account.  Now, since you’re claiming that you’ve been using your account every single day to send and receive e-mails, I’d like to ask you to provide us a copy of an e-mail that you’ve sent before Jun 26, 2009 to further investigate this issue.  You can ask your recipient to provide you a copy and then post it here. 

Ok, i'll try to get a copy and post it here as soon as I can.

Don't you guys keep SMTP access records when email is sent out or login records when a login is attempted?

From everything I'm reading it seems this random tagging of active accounts as inactive is a common problem and you guys always seem shocked and surprised every time you read a complaint like this.

The most recent Emails were sent and received from this account on June 20th around 11:30 AM EST and on June 24th and 25th just before being reset on the 26th.

The best I can do is give you the email address of the person I emailed on those dates & times or you'll need to work with your SMTP & access logs to see the account has been accessed.

As I've said previously, my case does not seem to be unique and I'm just wondering how long this will keep happening until you realize it's a bug and will have it fixed and have a solution.

Hi bluecree. I understand that you need your e-mail messages back. I have re-checked your account and it was deactivated. I'm very sorry; I'm unable to restore your deleted e-mail messages.

However, I will take note of your feedback and send it to our Product Development Team. They use feedbacks, suggestions, and concerns for future versions of Hotmail.

Thanks for responding but that doesn't help my situation nor does it answer the question as to why the account was deactivated.

The account was used nearly daily. I gave you dates and times of emails sent just days before this happened and can even offer you the email address to whom they were sent.

Why did this happen?

This isn't a matter of feedback, suggestion or concern. It's an outright critical bug whereby my account was deactivated because someone or something decided it hadn't been used in over 270 days when, clearly, that is not the case.

Why can the messages no longer be retrieved? Are no backups retained? How do you manage disaster recovery? Or, better yet, in cases like mine where CLEARLY an account is being used almost daily yet it gets deactivated anyway because some "record" somewhere incorrectly tagged it as inactive.

I've decided to retain a copy of this thread and also link to it from various blogs and forums. It seems Microsoft has yet again baffled the mind with "features" that somehow only serve to make one's life miserable by bugging out and the only thing Microsoft has to say in its defense is, "but the records show it was inactive". Yes, because those records are infallable. A testament to Microsoft's technological saavy and feats of engineering.

I guess this is another good reason to use GMAIL instead.

Free or not, Microsoft values its name and its users of Hotmail / Live services, otherwise it wouldn't spend money marketing them so aggressively and being concerned to losing market share to the likes of Google and Yahoo. These "free" services aren't given by Microsoft out of the goodness of their collective heart so spare me the disclaimer citation and your view that I should be thankful for such a free service. It's called Marketing.

I guess the only time MS will show any serious concern is when an exodus of its "free" services starts taking place.

@ bluecree

I would like to refer you to Windows Live Hotmail's inactivity policy in Section 15 of the Microsoft Service Agreement page. Section 15 states that, "We may cancel or suspend your access to our authentication network for inactivity, which we define as failing to sign in to our authentication network for an extended period, as determined by us. If we cancel your credentials, your right to use our authentication network immediately ceases." This content can be found at:

http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=tou&mkt