If anyone can make this work, or find the person at Microsoft responsible for randomly setting EAS server names for Outlook.com accounts and Microsoft live custom domains (see http://domains.live.com), then they would be a god.  I have been trying to find a solution to this for 6 months, and have spent about 80 hours talking to friendly but incompetent Microsoft Support People in the departments of, Microsoft Accounts, Outlook.com Accounts, Office 365, Exchange Server Support (because all other personnel transfer me there because they don't understand how email works).

I have tried the following servers names to setup Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) to connect with my live custom domains (see http://domains.live.com) to the Outlook 2013 email client.

I am able to use EAS with a @outlook.com, @live.com, and @hotmail.com email address, by using "s.outlook.com" as a servername (by the way, I just found that today after 6 months and discussions with about 100 MS employees)

However, "s.outlook.com" doesn't work with live custom domains (which, it is unclear who manages their MX servers, outlook.com or some old live.com system)

I have also tried the following names:
"blu-m.hotmail.com"
"www.outlook.com"
"m.hotmail.com"
"s.outlook.com"
"snt-m.hotmail.com"

No luck.

The error message I get in Outlook is:



And, I am 99.9999999% certain that of the 1000 times I typed in the password, I got it correct at least once.

I am not the only one who has been trying to find a solution to this problem, nor have I been trying the longest.  I have found blogs, forums, and even threads here that are over a year old and have no solution, or people claim to have a solution that worked for them, but it no longer works.

What is the deal.  You would think that Outlook 2013 should automatically setup any Microsoft related service automatically.  All the other programs, excel, word, etc work seemlessly through skydrive to sync all settings based on Windows login credentials.  Why is Outlook.com and Outlook 2013 have so much difficulty with this.  Email is the oldest thing in the book to sync.

Here are other threads that have either not found a solution, or some claim to have found solutions that clearly don't work for others:

The official documentation, that claims s.outlook.com is the solution for
"Apps that support Exchange ActiveSync", which I assume would include Outlook 2013, but apparently not. 

Also, you would think the correct instructions would be under
"Microsoft Office -> Get info on setting up Outlook.com in Microsoft Office Outlook here."  But, that makes you believe it will work automatically, which would be the ideal behavior, but it doesn't work with Microsoft live custom domains.  

Here they give: "m.outlook.com", and use a custom domain as an example:
http://help.outlook.com/en-Us/140/bb896613.aspx
That doesn't work either.

Leilani on this thread, seems to have helped some people by introducing the never mentioned before "s.hotmail.com".  However, this is not working for me and many others.

On this thread, I see the same unsuccessful names being thrown around.  They seem to work for some lucky bastards, but not for others"m.hotmail.com"  However, one guy seemed to have an interesting idea:
  • Domain\Username, fill in your complete email address and password. In Server, when you login to the web version of your outlook.com account, take note of the first part of the server name in the URL (e.g. if it is https:/snt1.mail.live.com then the server for you will be snt-m.hotmail.com), the alphabetical part only followed by a dash (-) and then m.hotmail.com

If it were true, my EAS server name would be: "col-m.hotmail.com", since the url for me at the moment is "col129.mail.live.com", but no luck for me on that one, nor others on that thread.  So, the same person replied with:

  • Searching some more on Google [notice the lack of trust in Bing here], throws lot of similar problems/ solutions. Seems to me there is just no universally working solution as of now.

This guy seemed pretty confident because "m.hotmail.com" worked on his iPhone with is microsoft live custom domains.  REALLY!  Outlook.com custom domains works with iPhone and iPad, but no Outlook 2013.  That is ridiculous Microsoft.


Here is a year old thread that claims "m.hotmail.com" is the server name.  Clearly not that.


Another official Microsoft site claiming "m.hotmail.com" is the go.


Here's another "m.hotmail.com" believer.


This poor guy is trying to figure out how to use Outlook.com custom domains in Outlook 2011 Mac via (EAS),  good luck with that.  Microsoft products apparently cant even work on their own with themselves.  I have a Surface with Windows 8.1 and Outlook 2013 on an Office 365 subscription and am trying to get my Outlook.com custom domain email.  ALL MICROSOFT, and I can't do what they did in the first version of Outlook for Windows 95.

This guy can't even get his IMAP working in Outlook 2013 with outlook.com custom domains.

Finally, here is one of my favorites by ME (larrysmith1000), 3 months ago, when I brought up this issue among many other issues with the "ONE MICROSOFT EXPERIENCE".  This issue was in question number 3 of my post, but was not address, and is still not.

But, here I am.  Still no solution after a total of 6 months searching, and an unused Outlook 2013, which I paid for.


Hopefully, this highlights how absurd it is that Microsoft hasn't just given out the Exchange ActiveSync settings for Outlook.com Custom Domains that will work with Outlook 2013.

Anyone?  I personality know 3 IT colleagues who had the same problem (They don't anymore, they gave up and instead use IMAP with gmail's custom domains.)  If I know 3, then how many other silent IT guys are out there?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.