Outlook.com & Hotmail Contacts shown linked

[wpcautobot]

Hello,

I have a new Outlook.com account. It is not tied to any other email addresses, and certainly no old Hotmail account. When I look at the contacts in my WP8, they all show linked outlook & hotmail. I can unlink them and delete the hotmail one if I want.

Why does it show two contacts, one from Hotmail? I expected to see just outlook.com contacts, none linked.

Any ideas why this is? How can I fix this for all contacts easily? Thanks

 

[jfa1]

outlook.com and Hotmail are the same now. When I sign in to Hotmail or windows live it comes up as outlook.com

 

[wpcautobot]

I know they are the same now, which is why I am confused that my WP8 contacts show they are linked to hotmail and outlook. I have only had an outlook.com account.

I'd really like to know why it shows two linked contacts. BTW, if I unlink them and delete one, it eventually deletes the other. I think this is a bug.

 

[svenhassel]

Maybe this is obvious: have you tried on the people app, to change the settings in "filter my contact list"??? I have unchecked the hotmail option to avoid the linking between my exchange contacts and the hotmail ones.

 

[wpcautobot]

I discovered the issue. The MS Account automatically names itself Hotmail in WP8. I had added an Outlook account too, so it brought in the contacts twice and linked them. Since they were the same actual contact and account, unlinking and deleting one, deleted the other.

To fix, I removed the outlook account and renamed my MS Account in WP8 to Outlook. Everything works great now.

 

[1oldtimer]

So by renaming your MS account to outlook and deleating your live account did you now lose your calendar, email, and to do lists? I only have these options in outlook and not the MS account. I too am tired of having to keep up with the two even though they are the same. Can some one please help here?
Thank you,
Frank

 

[foxbat121]

The main identity account (the one you initially setup for WP8), assuming it is a Hotmail or Outlook account, will always have less options because they are all ON by default and mostly not configurable. There is no reason to add another alias account to confuse the system. Calendar and to do list will work just fine. So is email.

 

[1oldtimer]

So, are you saying that all I need is my MS account and I can delete the Live account? Both are the same address but the MS account only has email with a check box while the Live (outlook) has all 4.

 

[foxbat121]

Correct. Your contacts and calendar as well as to-do list will sync just fine. MS made WP to simplify the life of users, not to complicate it.

 

[ASK472k]

After a little bit of struggle, I was able to:

1. Change the "Hotmail" label to "Outlook"
2. Change the "Microsoft Account" (which I had earlier labeled Outlook and thus prevented step 1 until I rectified it) to "Microsoft"
3. Clear the checkbox under Microsoft Account for email.

However, I still see the option of seeing "Microsoft" contacts in my People app. Why is that? I didn't check any Contacts checkbox under the Microsoft account! There was only email, which I cleared.

When I use the People filter to Show Contacts From Microsoft and Outlook, I see lots of dupes. Why am I even given the option of seeing these poorly normalized "Microsoft accounts"? Where do they even come from?

That's the biggest confusion: since you need to add a default Microsoft account to the phone - one that you can't delete - why doesn't that one pull in the Outlook contacts? Why do I have to add a second account to do that - one that just makes things more complicated?

 

[foxbat121]

Please read my post#7 above.

 

[Chris_Kez]

I found this confusing as well. When I bought my 920 I made a Microsoft Account but never checked the box to sync email. The phone labeled this MS Account as "Hotmail". Some months later I created an alias using xxxxxxxx@outlook.com. I subsequently started using that email address on the web and eventually decided to "add" it to my phone, not realizing all I had to do was sync email from my "Hotmail" (MS) account. So I added a new account to the phone and called it "Outlook", and some days later I realized I had all of these duplicate calendar and contact entries, just like the OP.

I used the filters in People and Calendar to mostly sort out how everything looked, but it wasn't until I read this post that I realized WHY this was happening. I just deleted the "Outlook" account from my phone, and renamed my base MS Account from "Hotmail" to "Outlook" and now it seems like everything is fine.

 

[Chris_Kez]

That's the biggest confusion: since you need to add a default Microsoft account to the phone - one that you can't delete - why doesn't that one pull in the Outlook contacts? Why do I have to add a second account to do that - one that just makes things more complicated?

Here's my understanding: You don't have to add a second account. The MS Account you set up on the phone does in fact pull in all of the contacts (and calendar items). However, it does not pull in mail by default. Because mail is optional and contacts/calendar are not, the only configurable sync option you'll see is for email.

 

[Chris_Kez]

Correct. Your contacts and calendar as well as to-do list will sync just fine. MS made WP to simplify the life of users, not to complicate it.

But in fact they do complicate it. Why not just make all of the pieces (email, calendar, contacts, to do, etc.) configurable? By only showing one configurable option, they obfuscate what is happening.
The other complication is the mess they've made with naming conventions, accounts, etc. across Hotmail, Live, Outlook.com, XBox, Skype, etc. Hotmail is now Outlook.com (and Outlook.com has nothing to do with Outlook from Office 365, which itself is different than desktop Outlook tied to Exchange). Then there's the different entry portals from Outlook and OneDrive, from which you can then move to People, Calendar or the various Office Web apps (which have similar sounding but totally separate Office 365 versions). Then when you sign out from Outlook you get dumped into MSN.com, which has links at the top for Outlook and Skype, but not OneDrive, People, Calendar or the Office apps. And if you click Skype it takes you to their web page which only allows you to edit your profile and buy things; you can't actually see or connect with your contacts. And absent from all of this are the various Xbox-related properties (which are also poorly interconnected).