Login to Hotmail without a Windows Live ID

Question

I have a Hotmail account which I haven’t used for about 6-8 years. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t have a Windows Live account back then.

How can I still login to that account with my old credentials? Will my account even still exist?

Answer 1

According to this Microsoft site, accounts were deleted after 120 days of inactivity in 2007. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/hotmail.mspx. Lifehacker confirms this: http://lifehacker.com/5325867/never-use-hotmail-inactive-webmail-as-your-secondary-email-account

And Hotmail user names are up for grabs 6 months after expiration or so by anyone else.

I am pretty darn sure your Hotmail account is gone. (Unless you have used it for Microsoft Apps like Outlook Express, Live Mesh or something like that. This would have counted as login.)

Answer 2

Account expiration. In Windows Live Hotmail, customers have four times longer than with MSN Hotmail before their account expires: 120 days of inactivity instead of 30 days.

Source.

See this about.com article also.