Custom Domains: Blog

Custom Domains renamed to Admin Center in V3.0

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:16:39 GMT

We've just released Version 3.0 of Custom Domains. We have decided to change the service name to Windows Live Admin Center. We're changing the name to better reflect our features and capabilities, but don't worry, Admin Center is still where you access the same great features you did with Custom Domains.

We're excited to introduce the ability for you to customize services like Windows Live Hotmail® with your own logo. Now your domain users will see your organization logo every time they check their email. Just select the co-branding link in the left navigation to get started.

You can still access the service at domains.live.com though you can expect to eventually be redirected to admincenter.live.com.

We appreciate your business and look forward to continue bringing you new improvements to this service.

Thanks for your understanding as we transition to our new name.

The Windows Live Admin Center Team

Custom Domains Version 2.0 is live!

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:54:43 GMT

Last week we released Version 2.0 of Custom Domains. Test drive the new features at https://domains.live.com.

Here are the major highlights of this release:

We now support "e-mail optional" domains, whcih means you can register a domain with us to host Windows Live ID's without changing your e-mail provider. This was a popular request for domain owners who wanted to use our service for Live Messenger services without moving their e-mail service.
Custom Addresses – add friendly names in your domain that are backed by Windows Live services. For example, the domain "mail.mydomain.com" can point to the URL where you host your e-mail, such as http://mail.live.com.
More information on member accounts – You can see when accounts are created and if your members have activated their e-mail accounts.
An increase in the number of default member accounts you can create (from 100 to 500). You can still request additional accounts.
Enhanced SDK – Contains twice the number of methods of our last SDK and richer sample applications. Go here to download.

We hope you enjoy the improved service. We still value your feedback and encourage you to visit our feedback site and our developer site.

Thank you,
WLCD Team

New SDK V2.0 Beta is live

Thu, 31 May 2007 20:28:14 GMT

The team has been busy working on the Custom Domains service, getting ready for a big release later this summer. We've just released a new version of the SDK V2.0 Beta that adds 12 new methods to help you manage your domains programatically. You can download the SDK here.

The SDK is in English only.

We would appreciate any comments or suggestions on the SDK, and would love to engage with a limited set of cusotmers to test this version of the SDK. Please email us at dsupport@microsoft.com if you have feedback or want to be in our limited Beta SDK program.

Thanks,

Custom Domains Team

Custom Domains latest version is live!

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:10:56 GMT

Today we released the newest version of Custom Domains for you to try out. Visit the site at https://domains.live.com. We have added some new features and incorporated comments from you in this release. We hope you'll agree that this is the best release to date.

Here are the major highlights of this release:

We now support all TLD's and ccTLD's.
You can register subdomains (a domain that is part of a larger domain) with our service. As an example, you could host mail in your primary domain promotehumanity.com as well as your subdomain mail.promotehumanity.com, or both.
We've improved the Open Membership experience. You can interactively create html code and preview it before you add this to your web site.
We now offer integration of domains for sale, which includes automatically configuring the service. This feature will initially be available in the US English market with other countries and languages added as partners are onboarded.
We've improved our error messages and added better Help content. We'll be adding online communities to our Help very soon.
Many other improvements based on your feedback, including immediate recycle of acounts and on-the-spot e-mail upgrades to Windows Live Mail Beta after logging into your Hotmail account (available in select markets).

We hope you enjoy the improved service. We still value your feedback and encourage you to visit our feedback site and our developer site.

Thank you,
WLCD Team

Issue Resolved

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:33:54 GMT

Windows Live Mail beta invitations are working again.

Service Update on Windows Live Mail Beta Invitations

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:00:02 GMT

We are currently experiencing trouble with the engine we use to send out Windows Live Mail beta invitations to your Custom Domains’ user accounts. This is resulting in users receiving “blank” invitation mails with no information on how to upgrade to the new service. We are working on this and we expect to resolve the issue shortly. There is no workaround at this time. Please accept our regrets for any inconvenience. We will update this site when the issue is resolved. Thanks for your patience.

Windows Live Custom Domains is now available in international markets!

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:02:16 GMT

We just released international versions of the Custom Domains service. The Custom Domains website is now available in the following 15 languages across 21 countries. You can get to the international version of the website by clicking on the corresponding link below. Alternatively, it may also be viewed if the browser language is set to one of the supported markets.

Australia (English)
Belgium (French and Dutch)
Brazil (Portuguese)
Canada (English and French)
China (Simplified Chinese)
Denmark (Danish)
France (French)
Germany (German)
India (English)
Italy (Italian)
Japan (Japanese)
Korea (Korean)
Mexico (Spanish)
Netherlands (Dutch)
Norway (Norwegian)
Russia (Russian)
Spain (Spanish)
Sweden (Swedish)
Taiwan (Traditional Chinese)
United Kingdom (English)
United States (English and Spanish)

We’d love to hear your feedback, especially from our international users on our latest improvements. Please use the “Feedback” link at the bottom of the site to send it to us.

Many of our customers have enabled the Open Membership feature for their domains. We'd love to know how you are using Open Memberships to promote your business or web community. Please use the “Feedback” link in the footer of the site to send us your story, and we’ll consider sharing this on our community site (http://dev.live.com/customdomains/default.aspx?app=customdomains).

Thank you for using Custom Domains!

Windows Live Custom Domains Team

Bye bye beta….Custom Domains v1 has launched

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:25:52 GMT

We’re leaving the “Beta tag” blanket at home. That’s right…thanks to your beta testing and feedback; we’ve now officially launched Windows Live Custom Domains. Our colleagues over in Messenger kicked off the Windows Live launch season last week. Along with the launch of OneCare and Live Favorites, we're excited to continue the momentum. Windows Live is about the Web, the way you want it. Personalization is a key piece here, and let's face it...your identity online is central to that. Custom Domains enables people to use all of the Windows Live and MSN services they want with an ID that's as unique to them as they want it to be.

For those who aren’t familiar with Custom Domains, we provide free hosted e-mail for your domain. Let’s say you own the domain name, “wingtiptoys.com.” With Custom Domains, you get unlimited, free e-mail accounts at that domain. You can open accounts for sales@wingtiptoys.com, owner@wingtiptoys.com, etc. Oh wait, did we mention that it’s free? This isn’t one of those “free during beta” trial offers. This is free for life.

New Feature: Open Membership

We’re jazzed about a new feature we’ve added called Open Membership. How does this work? Let’s say you run a website called “soccerfan.com.” Your users love your site and want an e-mail address @soccerfan.com. Prior to this launch, each user would have to request an e-mail account from the administrator. Then, the admin would manually approve and create each account. We’ve made things much easier all around with this launch.

With the Open Membership featured enabled, we provide URL links so users can automatically sign-up for an e-mail account @soccerfan.com. Admins no longer have to burden with the manual creation of email accounts, and users get accounts immediately. Users will love their new email because it’s a brand new MSN Hotmail or Windows Live Mail beta account with a highly personalized @soccerfan.com domain name. Web site owners will love it because their users help promote the site. Also, users will re-visit the host site often to check their e-mail.

Featured Customer: Waterloo, Belgium

Our newest customer is the Belgian city of Waterloo. They’re offering free @waterloo.eu MSN Hotmail accounts to 30,000 Waterloo citizens. We’re honored to partner with Waterloo to offer this new technology to their citizens. If you’re an organization or business looking to provide e-mail to your users, come check us out!

Thanks again to our beta testers who have helped develop the service – we’ve learned a lot. We will have more features to come, so come back and visit often!

New release is Live!

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:44:34 GMT

The team is proud to introduce the latest release of Windows Live Custom Domains for you to try out. Visit the new site at http://domains.live.com. We have worked hard to incorporate your feedback into this release, and want to thank all of you for trying our service during the Beta period.

Here are the major highlights of this release:

The most noticeable improvement is in the user interface. We think the new UI will make navigation easier than ever.
We've introduced an exciting new feature called Open Membership (more details below).
We've improved our error messages and added contextual Help.
We've increased our browser support to include Firefox and the upcoming IE7. And we work on Mosaic and Opera (these 2 browsers not officially supported).

Open Membership will allow you to create e-mail accounts in your domain directly from your website. This is a great way for clubs and affinity groups to reach out to a broad audience and create communities of users with your domain name included in their Windows Live ID. And all you have to do is register your domain with the service, select Open Membership, and add webpage code that we provide to allow users to sign up. Let us know what you think about this new feature.

We hope you enjoy the improved service. Note that we have closed down comments on this blog site since we want to devote the site to announcing updates. We still value your feedback and encourage you to visit our feedback site and our new developer site.

Thank you,
WLCD Team

Tell us about your Custom Domains SDK app and win!

Tue, 16 May 2006 20:45:48 GMT

Last month, we launched the Windows Live Custom Domains SDK. With the SDK, developers can now create client and web applications using Custom Domains through our web services calls. We want to hear more about the applications you’ve developed using our SDK, so we’ve got a nice, little incentive.

E-mail your SDK story to dsupport@microsoft.com with “SDK Story” in the subject line. Tell us the:

Application Name
Application Description
Link to the Application
Who is it intended for?
Why should they use it?

If we like your story, we’ll publicize it on our blog. We’ll also throw in a limited edition, Custom Domains fleece from Columbia Sportswear, while supplies last. This contest will end on June 15, 2006.

** CLARIFICATION **

We intended the SDK to be used by individuals to manage their own domains, but we are seeing clever individuals create applications that can be downloaded to help others manage their domain users. We are impressed with the ingenuity of these applications, however we realize that we haven't given proper guidance around:

1. use of our trademark and logos

2. providing a clear warning to the end user that they are entering their Windows Live/Passport credentials into a client application, which presents a security risk

We're working to come up with guidelines that will make it clear how to develop applications with the entire suite of Windows Live Developer products. We expect to have those published in the next few months. In the meantime, feel free to develop your own productivity tools with the WLCD SDK.

Good luck, and have fun coding!

WLCD Update

Fri, 12 May 2006 23:31:20 GMT

Hello again.

We wanted to give an update on where the WLCD product is heading.

We are working hard on our next release. You can expect to see:
- A whole new user interface
- Improved online Help
- Better integration with other WL services
- A killer new feature (surprise)

Last week we hosted a nice group of MSN Butterflys (MVPs) and got some good feedback on our service and future direction.

As most of you know, there has been a change in our support model recently. As we move closer to removing the Beta tag, it is necessary to expand our support organisation to scale our support coverage. As you can imagine, there is a ramp up time to bring new support personel up to speed with the product. WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT SUPPORT and are committed to giving you timely and accurate assistance.

Custom Domain accounts are now working with PocketMSN! I know this will be good news to some of you.

Thanks for using WLCD.

WL Custom Domains Team

WLCD Support has changed

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:44:34 GMT

We've changed our support model to align with the rest of Windows Live. Please submit any questions/comments to the following eform:

http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wldomains&page=support_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts

A number of you have asked about our M5 release; it is now live. This release was more about bug fixes and infrastructure changes so the impact on the feature set was limited. We hear your comments about new feature requests and are working hard on making WLCD better for our big live release in the next few months.

Thanks for using WLCD!

Update on our service

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:57:27 GMT

I'm glad that many of you are now seeing the full benefits of the Windows Live Mail interface. We apologize for those of you that waited longer than 2 weeks for the migration.

Another reminder to post individual questions to our dsupport@microsoft.com email address so we can better address your concerns in email.

There were a few questions that I'd like to respond to here:

1. Do we support more than 60 user accounts?

Yes, but only for qualified customers. Please email us at dsupport@microsoft.com if you are interested.

2. Do Custom Domains accounts work with Pocket MSN?

They do. There was a bug that has been fixed and the update will be released soon.

3. How long does it take to get on the Windows Live Mail Beta?

Approximately 2 weeks after you accept the invite.

Thanks for using our service!

Custom Domains Team

Windows Live Mail Beta Update

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:36:36 GMT

Thank you for the interest you have expressed in upgrading your email accounts to the Windows Live Mail Beta.

We’re processing your applications on an ongoing basis. We’re currently experiencing a short delay in moving the initial applicants onto the beta. These initial accounts will not be moved in the two week window promised when you accepted the invite. We expect this to be resolved within the next week and a half.

I am happy to tell you that all applications made within the past few days and all applications moving forward should be completed within the two week timeframe promised in the sign up flow.

We’re sorry for this additional inconvenience and appreciate your patience while we work to bring all of you this exiciting feature as quickly as possible.

Windows Live Mail Beta invites are ready for you!

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:53:41 GMT

This morning we added the ability for all domain owners to invite up to 40 users to join in the WL Mail Beta. Log into your domain administrator page at http://domains.live.com and you'll see the link on the left pane. Enjoy!

M4 is Live!

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 02:02:32 GMT

M4 was released on February 9th.

Main highlights for this release:

60 users - We now allow you to add up to 60 users in your domain.

User management - We've added a few things here, including improved UI and allowing you to specify if the user's password should be changed on first login.

Better error messages - We have heard your feedback and improved the error messages in the admin console. We have also updated our Help file.

Bug fixes - Based on customer feedback, we have fixed a number of bugs.

We are moving forward with still more features, including an SDK that should make administration of a domain easier. Contact dsupport@microsoft.com if you are interested in early access to the SDK.

Keep the feedback coming!

Custom Domains Team

Rejected Domains, SPF records and MSN Premium integration

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 01:03:23 GMT

Rejected Domains

Many of you have asked us why your domain name has been rejected. There are several reasons:

1. Domain has too many EASI passports registered with Passport
2. Blocked word in string (like "bank" or "free")
3. Domain is "externally managed" - there is a passport account already associated with this domain name

4. Domain or subdomain not supported by Passport (based on regional standards)

We are working on better messages to help you understand the exact reason for our next milestone release. In the meantime, please send email to us if you believe your domain should be supported.

Adding an SPF record to your DNS
The Sender ID Framework is a protocol created to counter e-mail domain spoofing and to provide greater protection against phishing schemes by verifying an e-mail message's sender. For more information, see
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/technology.mspx

You can help us reduce email spoofing by adding a TXT record to your DNS settings (many domain providers allow the addition of TXT records). The record would contain the following:
v=spf1 include:hotmail.com ~all

Note that this is *not* required for your domain to use our service.

MSN Premium support

If you want to include Custom Domain accounts under your existing MSN Premium subscription, we support this. However, you must first enter a Country Name and Birthdate for each Custom Domain account before adding it to your MSN Premium subscription. You do this by logging into each Hotmail account, selecting Options, then Profile. If the Country is blank, you will receive an Error Code:2 when you attempt to add this account under your MSN Premium account.

M3 Released

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:27:24 GMT

We’ve shipped a new version of our Beta. We’ve tried to address the main concerns and bugs that have been reported with our previous version, M2.

We fixed the sign-in problem many people were having. Some people would click sign-in and be taken back to a page telling them they needed to sign-in.

We’ve increased the number of users allowed in a domain from 20 to 40. We’ve also added UI to our user management page that deals with larger numbers of users in a domain.

We’ve added an ability to “import” existing Passports in the domain. This means if you used an existing E-Mail as Sign-In (EASI) Passport in a domain and later configured the domain for use with domains.live.com, you are now given the option of “importing” this user into the domain and giving the Passport an inbox or alternatively “evicting” the user so they are forced to pick a new name next time they sign-in.

We’ve worked on improving Firefox support.

We’ve fixed a number of minor bugs and problems.

Keep the feedback coming.

Thanks,

Windows Live Custom Domains Team

Thanks for your Feedback!

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 00:07:45 GMT

We've heard back from many of you with good suggestions and questions. Thank you!!!

First of all, let me clarify a few common issues:

1. You have to delete all other MX records for our service to work with your domain. We do this to ensure proper email delivery.

2. Yes, you can use Outlook or Outlook Express to manage these mailboxes. You have to purchase a premium MSN service to enable this - see below for more information.

3. There is a 30 day waiting period to reclaim an email address if you delete it. This is driven by security and privacy reasons across all hotmail boxes.

4. Mailbox size is 2mb by default. You can increase the size to 250mb/2gb by following the instructions later in the blog.

I also wanted to add directions for three of the more popular registrars our customers are using to host their domains and change their MX records. Here you go:

Godaddy.com instructions for changing MX record

1. Log in to godaddy.com
2. Click on Domains -> My Domain Names in pulldown menu
3. Click on the domain name you want to manage (domain details appear on right)
4. Expand "Total DNS Control" option in detail section
5. Click on "Total DNS Control And MX Records"
6. Click on "Launch Total DNS Control Manager" - new window appears
7. Scroll down to "MX (Mail Exchangers)" and delete all records displayed
8. Click on "Add new MX Record"
9. Enter 10 for the Priority under Step 1.
10. Enter the MX record that you received on the Windows Live Custom Domains site under Step 3.
11. Click on Continue
12. Click on Add

13. Click "Verify DNS" on the live.com site (it can take some time for the MX record to be propogated)

Yahoo Domains instructions for changing MX record

1. Log onto Yahoo Domains

2. Click on "Domain Control Panel"

3. Click on "Manage Advanced DNS Records"

4. Click on "Change MX Records"

5. Clear (delete) all old MX addresses

6. Enter the MX record that you received on the Windows Live Custom Domains site on the first blank line, under "Mailserver Hostname"

7. Click "Submit"

8. Click "Verify DNS" on the live.com site (it can take some time for the MX record to be propogated)

1und1.de instructions for changing MX record

1. Go to http://login.1und1.de
2. After having logged in to your account click the link "Domains"
3. Click the "DNS" button
4. Choose the domain you would like to use (subdomains do NOT work with this!)
5. Click the "Bearbeiten" button
6. Under "Erweiterte Einstellungen" where it says "MX-Einträge" check the "Anderer Mailserver" box
7. Enter the MX record that you received on the Windows Live Custom Domains site into the first row and "10" into the box next to it
8. Click the "OK" button

9. Click "Verify DNS" on the live.com site (it can take some time for the MX record to be propogated)
And that should be it. You won't have to enter Host or TTL.

Certificates and Firefox

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:36:28 GMT

We've done some investigating here. It appears that the warnings when visiting our site with Firefox may not be a problem with our certificate, but rather a bug in Firefox. At least this is the case according to the following blog posting.

http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2004/06/04/148612.aspx

We'll continue to investigate if there is a work-around to the problem for Firefox users.

Saving your Messenger Contacts

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 02:45:13 GMT

If you've been using youraccount@yourdomain.com to sign in to MSN Messenger for a long time, it may appear that you will lose your contacts when you sign up yourdomain.com for the Windows Live Custom Domains beta and create a new temporary password for the account.

You have not lost your contacts. If you sign in to MSN Messenger and you find your contacts list is missing, please follow these steps to retrieve your contact list.

Sign in to www.passport.net with your email address and original password. You will be asked to Change Your E-mail Address.
Choose a new e-mail address. You will use this email address temporarily to sign in to Messenger to retrieve your old contacts list.
You will see a confirmation page saying your email was changed. Click Continue.
Now, go to MSN Messenger and sign in with this temporary account.
Go to the Contacts menu. Choose Save Contact List.
Save the list to an easy to find place on your computer. Now sign out of Messenger.
Sign in to Messenger with your Windows Live Custom Domains email address and new password.
From the Contacts menu, choose Import Contacts from a File.
Browse to the file you created in step 6. Complete the Import process.
Voila. You’re done!

More Sign In Help

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 01:12:17 GMT

If you're still encountering the sign in issue, please try clearing your browser cookies. In IE, you can do this from the Tools menu. Choose Internet Options and then Delete Cookies.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Setting up your MX Record

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 01:09:54 GMT

We've had more questions around MX Records. Very frequently, people are setting our MX record correctly but wondering why DNS is not validating on our site. If you're in this camp, please make sure that you have deleted all the older MX records from your domain.

If you have any alternate MX records setup, we will not validate your domain. This is to prevent mail coming to your domain from getting lost.

Thank you for using our service!

Password Rules

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 21:46:38 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving from the Windows Live Custom Domains team!\

We've had a couple folks ask why we don't specify the requirements for a temporary password.

Currently, the password must be at least 6 characters in length. You can use almost any characters. Numbers, letters, and most symbols can be used. These are temporary passwords, so don't make them too difficult to remember!

The first time you sign in to the account, you will be asked to change the password. This is for security reasons. Some have requested that we not require the password to be changed. We'll have to review this with our security team.

Let's Answer Some of Your Questions

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:35:49 GMT

We've been up and live for a few days now.

Thanks to everyone who has sent us feedback and posted comments about the product. It has all been great and we appologize if it is taking us too long to respond. Hopefully we can answer most of your questions in this blog.

Also, thank you to everyone who likes the product. It really makes us feel great when people like the work we do.

Now onto your questions.....Calendar

Some of you have noticed that the MSN Calendar doesn't work with accounts created through Custom Domains. We've found a work-around to this problem. If you go to http://accountservices.msn.com and add a birthdate to your profile the Calendar will work fine.

Ads

Some of you are asking questions about ads. Right now we do display ads when reading your mail. If you don't wish to see these ads, or simply want a richer e-mail client we have lots of subscription products that can be applied to your account. These include MSN Premium, MSN Hotmail Plus, and others. You can purchase these subscriptions at http://join.msn.com.

Regarding the ad in outgoing mail: this ad is also hidden for subscription products but we hear your feedback on this one and are exploring options.

IMap/Pop3

Right now these protocols are not supported for free or paying users. We are evaluating adding these protocols to the product in the future, but likely as part of the above subscriptions. We currently do support protocols for rich e-mail clients like Outlook and Outlook Express in the above subscriptions.

Inbox Size

A number of folks are still having problems getting the right inbox size for their accounts. By default Hotmail will create a 2MB inbox size for accounts that do not have a country in their profile. So if you want a bigger inbox you need the country in your profile. Unfortunately this must be set before you sign-into Hotmail for the first time.

If you've already signed into Hotmail you can "close" your Hotmail account. There is a link to "close" your account from the Hotmail help pane. Then you can update your country and go back to Hotmail.

Initially accounts are 25MB and grow to 250MB after a short period of time.

And as folks have pointed out, Kahuna (the new e-mail UI) inboxes will all be much bigger.

Kahuna (the new AJAX e-mail UI)

Speaking of Kahuna, we are launching an invitation program to get people into the Beta. We are also working on getting all Domain adminstrators assigned a number of invites. Stay tuned for this. We'll get this out to you as soon as we can.

EASI Passports

A few more advanced users noticed some odd behavior with EASI Passports. EASI Passports are Passports that use an existing e-mail address as the sign-in name, and as such don't have an inbox hosted by us associated with them but can be used by other Passport services (e.g. Messenger, Spaces).

We are working on allowing EASI Passports to be "imported" into a Custom Domain and be assigned an inbox without losing any data. In fact, if the domain adminstrator of a domain is in the domain. For example, if EASI Passport user@xyz.com is the adminstrator of xyz.com this should in fact be the case. When the MX record is validated, user@xyz.com is allowed to use Hotmail.

What doesn't work is if there is another user in the domain. Say there is an EASI user user2@xyz.com. If the domain administrator creates a new Passport user2@xyz.com, a new Passport is created and the original EASI Passport owner of user2@xyz.com is asked to pick a new member name.

We realize this is a major shortcoming and will add a feature to "import" other existing EASI Passports into the managed domain. We just didn't have time to get this into our M2 release (which is what you are all running right now).

In the meanwhile, those of you who do notice this issue should be able to minimize the pain by exporting your messenger contacts from your old Passport and importing them to MSN Messenger once you sign in with your new account.

Sign-In

A few folks are still having some problems signing into the service. As a reminder, simply sign out of Passport and then sign-in again and things should work better.

Invalid Domains

Some folks are getting error messages that your domain is invalid for this service. This can happen for several reasons.

You might have bought a domain with the old MSN Personal Address product. We'll allow these domains to be used in an upcoming release
You might be trying a domain that isn't a valid "root". We allow many of these, including .com, .net, .org, .name, .info, .edu, .co.uk, etc. What we don't allow is subdomains beyond one level past a root. So we allow xyz.com, but not abc.xyz.com. Why no subdomains? We want to ultimately allow this, but need to do some work to make sure that it is secure in how subdomains are managed within a domain and deal with MX records that may come and go.
You might be bringing a domain that is popular and has lot's of existing Passports. We have a way to enable this type of domain, but you'll need to contact us to set this up.

We also realize that our error message when this occurs isn't the most informative. We'll work on improving that too.

CatchAll/Wildcarding/Forwarding

These are great feature requests that we'll get to work on. We hear you loud and clear.

Waiting Period

Some people have been deleting accounts and trying to recreate them with the same name. Our current policies and infrastructure requires us to wait a period of time before an account name can be reused (approximately 30 days). We are working on ways to shorten that time.

Other e-mail features

People have been asking about a number of e-mail features that might be available. The short answer to all these questions is simple. If it is a feature of "free" Hotmail, it is a feature of accounts in Custom Domains. If there is a feature available in a subscription on a Hotmail account, it is also available in a subscription on a Custom Domain account.

Setting up an MX Record

Several people have asked us several questions about this. We'll try to answer some of the more common ones here.

First, some folks want to know why we require this. The MX record is a value associated with your domain that controls where e-mail is routed when someone sends mail to you. Obviously to have e-mail delivered to your inbox the MX record needs to point to our servers.

Also, many people claim their ISP or registrar only allows an IP address to be set as an MX record. And several have even looked up the value of our IP address and tried to use this. Unfortunately this doesn't work. The value we give you to put into DNS has a special code unique to you. We store this code with the Passport you signed in with, and we look in the DNS to see if the values match. This is when we allow you to "create" accounts in your domain. So we need you to set the MX to the value we give you.

People in this situation have several options. They could talk to their ISP or Registrar and ask them how to set this up. Alternatively you could switch to another DNS provider. Most ISPs and Registrars that have limited DNS capabilities will allow you to run DNS with another provider. You would change the nameserver with your Registrar or ISP to this other DNS provider. There are several DNS providers out there, and many of them free. Go to search.msn.com and look for "free dns" and you'll probably find a few options.

Alternatively you could transfer your domain to another ISP or Registrar. To avoid upsetting folks, we'll be neutral and not recommend one.

Next, people have asked us to put up instructions for changing the MX record with various Registrars and DNS providers. We'll do our best to keep up with these requests, but every registrar and ISP is different and (to be frank) some don't make this easy.

We do realize that people fall into one of two camps. People who understand everything written above, and people who are confused by all of this. We'll do our best to answer your questions, and are working on some ideas to make this process easier for the future.

24 hours after a launch

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 20:58:09 GMT

We've been live for 24 hours now.

For the record, we were up at domains.start.com a few weeks ago which begs the question: If a product ships on the web and nobody notices it, does it count?

Seriously though, folks seemed to have noticed us now and have given us some really good initial feedback. Some of it positive, some negative, and some wait and see. We certainly appreciate all of it.

I thought I would answer a few of the more common questions that have arisen:

Right now the product is limited to 20 accounts. Nobody seems to have noticed that you can create more than 20 accounts but the UI only shows you 20 of them. I
As we get the kinks out of integration with the other live services there are bound to be a few problems. This is why we call things Beta. A notable one is the size of the inbox. Remember to update the country in your Passport profile before visiting Hotmail and the inbox size will be correct.
We certainly want to have these accounts work on the new Windows Live Kahuna UI. Rest assured that these accounts will work with this new UI, and soon we'll make it possible for these accounts to automatically use this great UI.
Regarding the certificate (one blogger noted that our SSL cert isn't trusted by Firefox), I humbly ask for patience while we fix the problem. Mea Culpa.
Programatic access to your inbox follows the same rule as a free Hotmail account. You can use our Web UI, and if you want to use a rich e-mail client we have lots of subscriptions that include this functionality
Right now the product is "free". Free is a euphamism for "advertising supported" of course. The marketing folks say never promise anything forever, so I won't do this. But folks are asking what our plans are here so I'll state that this is the current model.
We have some big ideas for integration with spaces. Stay tuned.

The product everyone is playing with now is the first of many versions to come. We are busy working on many of the other features folks are suggesting and those mentioned above. We'll update this site frequently, and certainly want folks to keep the feedback coming.

Thanks,

The Domains Team

Windows Live Custom Domains

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 05:08:32 GMT

A few months ago some of folks had what seemed like a good idea. Why not allow our great e-mail infrastructure be used for any user in any domain. Furthermore, why should a user have to buy from us or transfer their domain to us for us to run their e-mail. Out of this Custom Domains was born.

Without much fanfare we launched the product about a month ago under the name http://domains.start.com. After getting the initial kinks out, we relaunched today as http://domains.live.com.

The premise of the product is simple:

You tell us your domain name
You pick an administrator
You edit the MX record of your DNS to a value we give you

Once you do this we allow you to create accounts for your domain. It is that simple and easy. We sometimes call the product "BYOD" which stands for "Bring Your Own Domain".

We'll be updating the site frequently with new features over the coming months. In the meantime, we would love to hear from you at dsupport@microsoft.com.

Thanks and enjoy the product!!

Sincerely,

The Custom Domains Team

Custom Domains: Blog

Custom Domains renamed to Admin Center in V3.0

Custom Domains Version 2.0 is live!

New SDK V2.0 Beta is live

Custom Domains latest version is live!

Issue Resolved

Service Update on Windows Live Mail Beta Invitations

Windows Live Custom Domains is now available in international markets!

Bye bye beta….Custom Domains v1 has launched

New Feature: Open Membership

Featured Customer: Waterloo, Belgium

New release is Live!

Tell us about your Custom Domains SDK app and win!

WLCD Update

WLCD Support has changed

Update on our service

Windows Live Mail Beta Update

Windows Live Mail Beta invites are ready for you!

M4 is Live!

Top questions from our users

Rejected Domains, SPF records and MSN Premium integration

M3 Released

Thanks for your Feedback!

Certificates and Firefox

Saving your Messenger Contacts

More Sign In Help

Setting up your MX Record

Password Rules

Let's Answer Some of Your Questions

24 hours after a launch

Windows Live Custom Domains