MS Account: what's the difference between Hotmail and Outlook?

Hoku001

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I've been using WP since 2010 - but with my Lumia 920 and WP8, the Microsoft Account I used to setup the phone, and the "email and accounts" under settings is mysterious. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

For the past 3 years, I've been using xxxx@live.com as my primary account on my phone. On WP8, when I setup this account info on my phone for the first time, it creates an "Outlook" account under "email and accounts":
For example:
outlooksettings.jpg

But, if I create a "Hotmail" account using the same xxxx@live.com account, it shows my a screen that looks like this:
hotmailsettings.jpg

The exact same account, but yet Hotmail shows me the option to sync Email, Calendar, Contacts, To dos - whereas the Outlook account only shows Email.

Can someone explain to me why this is?

Also, for some reason, my Outlook account (which is primary account created when I first setup the phone) often fails to sync...sometimes it's okay, but other times I get the 86000C0A error code and it says unable to sync. Keep in mind this is the same email address and password, and the same server (bay-m.hotmail.com) as the Hotmail account on my phone. I've put the Hotmail tile on my phone's home page, since it seems to always work ...and I've relegated the Outlook tile to the app list (the phone won't allow me to delete it).

Not a show stopper, but why is it like this?
 

montsa007

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I feel, because you setup the basic account first it won't give you many options as compared to an additional account which has options like sync contacts etc.,

Are you on GDR 2?, maybe a bug in GDR 2
 

Hoku001

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I'm on AT&T, no GDR2 for me yet. Sure seems like a bug to me - and I'd be really annoyed if my primary account was frequently unable to "phone home" and my email, calender and contacts weren't up to date. Setting up the second Hotmail account just worked so like a stack of cards on the table, I leave it alone. But the mystery around this has bugged me for a long time.
 

Shinigami910

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It isn't a bug in the os. As you set up the outlook account to be your primary phone account calendar and contacts are automatically synched from the account. If you had set up your hotmail account as the primary account on your phone it would have looked the same as your outlook one does right now. I have my hotmail email as my primary phone account and i get all my calendar appointments and contacts synched to my phone no problem.
 

envio

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As Shinigami910 has said, your primary account, the Microsoft Account, will automatically sync your contacts, calendar and also wallet, XBox related data. For any secondary account that you add, you can choose what it syncs but you obviously don't get the XBox and wallet stuff, that can only be tied to your primary account.

But to answer in raw technical terms what the difference is, there's nothing. It's a case of unfortunately named products in WP and the timing of historical changes at Microsoft. Microsoft provided different icons to be helpful but they all use the same type of service that uses the push-based method, called Exchange Active Sync (EAS).

In WP7, there were two options, Windows Live and Outlook but they were essentially the same too. In WP8, we have Microsoft Account, Outlook and Hotmail and the only difference is the icon and the fact that the Microsoft Account is always the primary one for all your WP purchases and Xbox related content.
 

Hoku001

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Thanks for the explanation. You're right about poorly named products. As they've rebranded Hotmail to Outlook.com, as a consumer, I do appreciate having an outlook.com address over the scorned hotmail.com domain. However, it does create confusion between the web based service and Outlook/Exchange (the part of MS Office). I know even when I've searched online for various questions about Outlook.com, search results are frequently returning information centered on Exchange.
 

envio

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I wish they had named the WP e-mail client something more generic like 'E-mail' and not Outlook. In reality, it has nothing to do with Outlook on the desktop, nor OWA. Also, instead of multiple choices for the same EAS clients, they could have applied the different icons dynamically based on your e-mail address if that was important. Then we'd only need only one Microsoft option, with all secondary accounts clearly identified with the appropriate icon, changeable of course.
 

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