I have had a Windows Live account for many years using my Yahoo mail address as the ID. Today, I decided to shift to Hotmail, and I created a new Hotmail account to which I exported all my Yahoo mail contacts. In so doing, I created a second Windows Live account, which uses my Hotmail address as the ID. However, when I tried to close the old account, I was unable to complete the task. This gives rise to question (A).

As to question (B), I remember when I opened my Yahoo account years ago, I utilized an option offerred by Yahoo to advise each of my contacts of my new Yahoo address and to request that they use it from then on. I don't see a similar option in my new Hotmail account. It would be quite laborious to have to advise each Contact  of my new preferred address individually. Is there a way to avoid this?