Ad Free Outlook.com – With Support?

Microsoft offers an "Ad-free" Outlook.com upgrade that also promises additional support. While ads disappear, support appears to be the same as free.

It appears I misspoke at least once: it’s $20 per year, not month.

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Update: see below for an update to the question I asked of Microsoft. There is support.

Transcript

So I got really excited earlier today when one of my assistants pointed me at something: ad-free outlook.com. For various reasons, it looked really lucrative and in fact I went ahead and signed up. I want to quickly show you what it’s about and why ultimately I’m still a little disappointed but there’s hope, I guess.

I’ve got a question outstanding to Microsoft to see if we can’t clear something up. Let’s have a look at the sales page for it. So the page talks about ad-free outlook.com, what you get for basically $20/year. The thing, the most obvious thing from its name of course is that you get no ads. The ad panel that’s normally to the right of the screen as you’re looking at email in your account is just gone.

It’s actually kinda cool. The other thing, one of the other things that you get is what they call “no account expiration”; so that means that as long as you keep paying your $20/year, even if you don’t log in to the account, the account won’t be deleted.

There’s also some talk about some additional space I’ve seen in a couple of different places but outlook.com is already very bad about showing you exactly how much space you’re using so it’s one of those things where that one doesn’t really excite me that much anyway.

And to be honest, you know, logging into your account, if you’re paying to keep it up, you should be logging into it periodically anyway. Every three months, every couple of months, whatever it is, you really ought to be logging into the account but that’s none of what got me excited and to be fair, for may people, that $20/year to get rid of the ads in their outlook.com experience, that might make it worth it right there.

The thing got me excited, though, was this little thing down at the bottom that talks about technical support. “If you have a problem with your account, we’ll be there to help with technical support at no additional charge.” Fantastic, I thought! This is one of those scenarios where outlook.com’s technical support, like all free email accounts is slim to non-existent depending on exactly which route you are going on.

And there are definitely continued instances of people getting say, locked out of their account especially when traveling and it seemed like a great opportunity to have maybe something more direct. So, I went in and signed up. My actual Hotmail account, the one that I’ve had, gosh, probably close to 20 years now, is now an ad-free outlook.com account!

Like I said, it’s kind of cool. There’s no ads but I went looking for the technical support. And here’s the problem. The instructions that appear after I signed up for ad-free outlook.com said for technical support go to support.live.com and then look for essentially the Hotmail plus link. So there are two problems with those instructions.

One is support.live.com doesn’t really exist anymore. It does redirect to a support option for Microsoft but it’s not live.com anymore and the other, of course, is that ad-free outlook.com used to be called Hotmail plus but it hasn’t been for quite some time.

The real problem is that on the resulting page, support.live.com, there is no place to click on that says that anything about Hotmail plus or outlook.com – ad free or anything else that would indicate that there’s an option that I should now have access to by virtue of having paid my $20.

So I give this to you for a couple of different reasons: one is if you’re really interested in not having advertisements in your outlook.com experience. If it’s worth $20/year. to you, great. That’s a great way to get rid of it, free up some screen real estate and not have to deal with the advertisements.

Personally, ads don’t bother me that much. I’m kind of used to them; I’m kind of “ad blind” in many ways but like I said, a lot of people feel strongly about it and if they feel strongly enough, maybe it’s worth $20.

Like I said earlier, the “no account expiration” – you know that’s neither here nor there. Like I said, I don’t think it’s something you really should be relying on. I honestly believe that the right thing to do is to log into the account every so often and keep it active that way but this is another benefit.

If you’re looking for technical support, if you’re looking for some kind of “leg up” on technical support, I gotta say that this is really misleading right now and from what I can tell this option really doesn’t exist.

What I’ve done is I have submitted a request in the Microsoft Support Forums, it’s the community forum, where occasionally, Outlook or Microsoft representatives will respond to things with the hopes that there will be a response, that somebody will tell me what’s up with this.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place, maybe I’m overlooking something, it could happen. So, maybe I’ll get a response. If I do, I will absolutely update you in the notes below this article on askleo.com. But, one of the other reasons I wanted to give you this example or show you about this, besides you know, warning you off if you’re really looking for technical support. So far it looks like your $20 isn’t going to get it. [Update: it apparently gets you something. See the notes below.]

This is an example of what I’ll call, I don’t know, evolution of a software service. The problem here, I think, is that Hotmail, Microsoft’s email system is very old. It’s been around, well, probably for over 20 years now. And of course Microsoft has been changing and improving the service over the years. They’ve also renamed it a few times. It was Hotmail and then it was MSN Hotmail, then it was Windows Live Hotmail and now, of course it’s Outlook.com.

Unfortunately, along the way, they haven’t really cleaned up all the remnants and they haven’t really updated everything that really should be updated. As you can see, the fact that they are talking about support may or may not still be part of what you are getting for your $20. Hopefully we’ll find out. Regardless, I mean if it is part of what we should be getting then they shouldn’t be directing you to support.live.com and they certainly shouldn’t be calling it Hotmail plus anymore. That product is long gone.

This happens. This kind of stuff happens all the time and it actually requires a certain amount of flexibility on our part as consumers to understand that something as old and as changing over time as Hotmail has been, it’s going to have these kind of warts. And warts they are; they are definitely problems that need to be corrected but they haven’t been corrected yet.

Who knows when or if they will be? It’s something to be aware of; something if you can, keep an open mind about as you navigate various online services including those that have been around for a while. Like I said, I will update you to any response I get on the forum post.

In fact, here’s ~~a link to the forum post~~ [now goes to the update below] so I think you should be able to see it yourself to see if I get a response directly. Otherwise, what I’m really interested in from you is it worth $20? Is it worth $20 to get rid of the ads but more importantly, let’s assume for a minute that the technical support option really does exist – that I’m supposed to be getting some kind of increased level of technical support for the $20/~~month~~year. that I’m paying.

Is it worth it to you? Is it something that you would potentially pay the money for in order to get that higher level of support? I know that it’s going to be an option for some especially if you’re backed into a corner and you’ve got a problem you may consider paying the $20 to be nothing if it will get you a faster or more reliable answer to your question.

But I’m really interested in how many people would be willing to go down that path. So, let me know. As always, here’s the link to this article on askleo.com. That’s where you’ll find not only this video but the transcript to this video, updates as I promised and of course your comments that I read all of them, moderated of course so we don’t have to deal with the usual riff-raff out on YouTube and hopefully we’ll get an answer and we’ll find out.

But like I said, I’m really curious as to how valuable you find or you might find something like this.

So, until next time, I’m Leo Notenboom for askleo.com. As always, remember stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to back up. Take care.

Update

I went looking for an answer, and apparently I have one now.

The first thing I did was to post in the Microsoft Community (forums) for Outlook.com. This was the question I asked:

I just upgraded my Microsoft account to “Ad Free” for $20/year.

The upgrade page – http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/ad-free-outlook – claims there is additional technical support available. I am unable to find the technical support.

The upgrade confirmation page includes the statement “For technical support go to http://support.live.com, sign in, and then click Windows Live Hotmail Plus”.

I get that Windows Live Hotmail Plus is what the option used to be called.

I cannot find that on the page to which I am directed when I go to support.live.com.

How do I get the additional support that I’m now paying for?

One of the volunteers there then directed me to an outlook.com support link, where I also asked the exact same question. Roughly 36 hours later I received the following response:

We acknowledged that you’ve recently upgraded to our Ad-free subscription and wanted to know how to contact our technical support. We are glad to inform you that you’ve already reached Outlook.com technical support which handles email related issues with Outlook.com. If you have any inbox-related concerns and how-to’s, feel free to get back to us to assist you with your concern.

Other than that, you can contact our Ad-free technical support by signing in to your account at

https://support.microsoft.com/ContactUs/TechnicalSupport?PID=17405&TID=100110385&STID=100110391&wa=wsignin1.0

then select “Accounts & billing” then “Windows and other Microsoft apps & subscriptions”. From there, you will be given options on how to contact our technical support through Chat and Scheduled Call Back.

The bottom line for ad-free outlook.com support

The bottom line is that it appears that “ad-free” isn’t required, but I have no idea if it prioritizes your support response or not.

It appears that the way things currently work is:

For “email related issues”, go here (https://go.askleo.com/olsupport). After signing in to your Microsoft account, there’s a form you fill out with your issue or question. It appears that you do not need to purchase the ad-free option to use that link – it’s available to all.
For other account issues (whatever the response might mean by “other than that”, i.e. “other than email”), then there is this link (https://go.askleo.com/adfreesupport – the link above, easier to type and I’ll update if 1 something changes) for online chat, or scheduled voice call-back.

The way I interpret the difference is this:

Anyone has access to email-related help using the submission form.
Login and other account-related issues go to the technical support link.

I’m curious what people’s experiences with those resources will be.

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About Leo

Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.

Comments

Scott E

April 23, 2016 at 3:29 pm

Add Free is worth it ,, been meaning to sign up but just lazy or Busy mostly ,, I really don’t like Advertisement or News Clips about stuff I’m not interested in filling up the “right side of MY brain” ,, As for the support, Welllll ,, maybe MS will give in, and they are just “ramping up” website still under construction or creating the human resources for that at this time !! It would be nice to see

Reply
Martha

April 24, 2016 at 6:19 am

Hi Leo,
I can’t see much benefit to me in paying $20 a year for ad free email. I just download my email to Outlook on my computer. If I didn’t have Outlook, I would download my email to another email client.
Maybe the support might be worth it if I ever had a problem, but in all the years I have had a hotmail/outlook account I have never had a problem, and apparently the support is non-existent for now, so I will definitely pass on this.
Martha

Reply
- Connie (Team Leo)
  
  April 24, 2016 at 10:16 am
  
  Not only that, downloading your email gives you an opportunity to keep your email backed up.
  
  Reply
  - Ray Smith
    
    April 25, 2016 at 3:55 pm
    
    I simply automatically forward messages from Outlook.com to Gmail, with Gmail then serving as the backup.
    
    Reply
- Mark Jacobs (Team Leo)
  
  April 25, 2016 at 10:10 am
  
  If you saw all the questions we get on Hotmail problems, you might reconsider the value of having support available. For me, it’s not so much a question of losing my emails. I have them backed up in several places, but if I somehow get locked out or hacked, I’d like to still keep the account. I’ve been paying medical insurance for years and have never been sick enough to use it yet, but I still consider it a necessity.
  
  Reply
  - JC
    
    April 26, 2016 at 1:07 pm
    
    Certainly not worth spending money on ‘Outlook’. It is too complicated and unreliable.
    
    Reply
    - Ray Smith
      
      April 30, 2016 at 7:32 pm
      
      Outlook is likely overkill for home users, but for businesses users it’s absolutely the best option. In fact, nothing else comes close.
      
      Reply
- Bryan Farrow
  
  April 28, 2016 at 5:23 am
  
  AdBlockPlus works for me.
  
  Reply
Bob Clyatt

April 26, 2016 at 8:38 am

Is there an ISP that doesn’t give at least one, if not more, free email accounts?
Why not use the free client mail included in your OS, from XP, thru 10?
Configure it and not bother with another one of Microsoft’s obscure ‘services’?
And since you are paying your ISP for monthly Internet Service, they will help you with your configuration.

Reply
- Mark Jacobs (Team Leo)
  
  April 26, 2016 at 9:10 am
  
  A serious problem with ISP supplied email addresses is that when you switch ISPs, you’ll lose your email account in most cases. That was the big selling point for free email services. They advertised themselves as email addresses for life. I still have my original Yahoo and Hotmail accounts I opened almost 20 years ago and my more recent GMail account from over 10 years ago. I’ve switched ISPs several times in that period, but I still have those email accounts.
  
  Reply
- Leo
  
  April 26, 2016 at 9:56 am
  
  The problem with ISP-based email accounts is that your email address is on that ISP’s domain (somethingorother “at” comcast.net for example). If you ever move and need to switch ISPs, you lose your email address.
  
  Reply
- Steven
  
  April 26, 2016 at 1:19 pm
  
  Because ‘Outlook Express’ was dropped a long time ago. If you want ‘official’ Microsoft email, you either use the mail.live.com *OUTLOOK.COM” webmail, get the actual Ourlook app/program or use the Mail app in 10. Otherwise there is no real mail program in Windows itself from 7 to 8.1
  
  Outlook Express was ancient and like driving a NASCAR racer with loose lug nuts in this day and age.
  
  Reply
Tom Hunn

April 26, 2016 at 9:09 am

Although I still have a ‘Hotmail’ account (and a Yahoo.com account) I’m currently very happy using Google Chrome and running ‘Adblocker’ whilst surfing.

Like many people, I’m very jaundiced with regard to Microsoft’s offerings – I’ve yet to dare to upgrade anything to Windows 10 as those who have, appear to lose their ‘Office’ facilities and have to purchase again.

I’m wondering if the disc version of Office 2003 I possess will run in Windows 10.

It seems to me that all Microsoft are interested in is picking your pocket – again…and again.

Reply
- Ray Smith
  
  April 27, 2016 at 11:59 am
  
  “It seems to me that all Microsoft are interested in is picking your pocket – again…and again.” – Comments such as this always strike me as a little peculiar. Office likely cost you between $100 and $500 depending on the version you bought – and that equates to between $0.20 and $1.00 per week over the 10-or-so years that it was supported. To my mind, that’s really not bad value – especially as it’s something that you probably use pretty much every day. I’d actually be quite pleased if all my tech purchases were to last a decade or more.
  
  Reply
T.T

April 26, 2016 at 9:41 am

Hi Leo,
I have the Microsoft Hotmail account almost as long as you may be 17 -18 years, now it’s called Live mail but I
don’t recall having Ads on it ever , not that I’m complaining ..
The only problem I had with the account is that somebody in Europe had the same e-mail address and I had some Notification
coming from Microsoft that I new did not belong to me, and it messed up my Skype account , so I had to close it.
So I don’t see any benefit to sign up for this new ad-free Outlook especially until they straighten out all the mess.

Reply
Per-Ola

April 26, 2016 at 10:55 am

Rarely any issues with Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com
I’ve had the same address for some 18 years, maybe more, and have my account as secured as the free one can be.
I might consider $20 a year just to better retain “ownership”.
I also have both a Yahoo account (filled with endless spam), and a Gmail that I use more professionally.

Outlook.com works by far the best with clients in iOS or in Windows (Office/Outlook 2013). Outlook still have serious issues with syncing IMAP folders with Gmail. Even after restoring the profile several times. Known Outlook issue… 🙁

But with e-mail accounts (secure/safe ones) really a necessity these days essentially to just live, a $20 annual fee to better retain access and ownership is peanuts.

Reply
Peter Ballantyne

April 26, 2016 at 12:56 pm

Well, ever since Outlook.com started I have tried several times to pay for the ad free upgrade, but without fail every time it simply tells me it “cannot log me on that this time”, and I can go no further. I like the service as it stands at present, especially now that they have brought the calendar function up to speed, but alas, some time ago, exasperated with my inability to pay MS for what I wanted I made the decision to go the Google way. Now I use Google Drove, Google Docs, and Gmail and calendar. I invested in a Chromebook to supplement my Windows desktop, and MS don’t give a hoot about their Outlook.com service since I was never able to even pay them for the ad free version.

For the record I am a computer hobbiest and user for over 20 years, and my main machine is a bog standard Windows desktop PC running Windows 8.1 Pro. I live in New Zealand and have an excellent VDSL connection.

Regards, Peter

Reply
Bernie Crowley

April 26, 2016 at 1:07 pm

I just completed by first year of “Ad Free Outlook” but did not renew. I don’t really care for the ads, but I am good at ignoring them.

Reply
- Steven
  
  April 26, 2016 at 1:26 pm
  
  There aren’t so many ads as there are links to the MSN featured videos and page, which sometimes is informative but usually a rehash of old news you already saw and ‘news-buzz’. My only problem with that is that sometime it holds the rest up from getting going..
  
  As for ad blockers, they only made loading some of my favorite forums sites much slower and I really didn’t care about the benefits on anything but Yahoo! On principle I would rather let THEM fix it as I’m usually certain it’s them and not me.
  
  Reply
Cameron Parrish

April 26, 2016 at 2:10 pm

I don’t care much for web-based e-mail readers, period. The interfaces of desktop e-mail clients are far cleaner.

Reply
Geoff

April 26, 2016 at 3:05 pm

I prefer to maintain tight control over my 2 relevant email accounts, so I manage them via an email client on my work PC and home PC, with home configured to delete them from the IMAP server automatically once downloaded. Personal email runs through my own domain, so I have control of it. Both Work & Personal accounts permit accessing via webpage if necessary also. Work email is only germane so long as I’m working. In a couple of years, things get a LOT simpler!

Reply
Marc Menard

April 27, 2016 at 11:42 am

I don’t see gmail asking for money, and that gmail account has never been blocked. I’ve had plenty of problems with the Microsoft hotmail account though. And seen other people get into trouble with them. Maybe it’s because everybody and their uncle has such an account, and the burden on Microsoft is unbelievable. I get that. And they probably don’t have the revenue stream enjoyed by Google (and their Android platform) to pay for such infrastucture. Okay.

There is one problem I saw a friend of mine go through, and it’s because of Microsoft’s way of imposing the use of a Microsoft Account on users of Windows 8 or 10 as a login account. She found out it can backfire in a bad way. My friend had a “username@live.ca” account, she’d been using that for years, then woke up one morning and found out that Microsoft had upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 essentially behind her back (so to speak). Windows 10 didn’t ask for any info, it simply picked one of her Microsoft email accounts (and not the one she would have used) and used it as an identifier for logging in to Windows. However, she recently got told that “live.ca” was going away. Problem is, she was away for a while and when she had time to deal with it, it kinda blew up in her face as she could not log in to her laptop, everything locked up pretty solid. I find that I don’t see this sort of behavior with the other two platforms I mentionned. Maybe Microsoft needs a bit more experience dealing with human customers to understand how to make this work smoothly. I don’t know. But to stay safe on my PC, I’ve created local admin accounts for myself and my wife, so if the Microsoft Account goes south, I can still get into my laptop. And personnally, as part of the user experience for Windows 10, getting blocked from using your computer because your email got deprecated or blocked simply is bad. For most folks, catastrophic even. And since the problem got created by Microsoft’s way of doing things, it would be ethical that they fix it at no cost. That’s just my opinion.

Reply
ScottE

April 28, 2016 at 3:34 am

I think another advantage of “ADD FREE” Outlook is this ,, I notice the “Memory Usage” on my ACER ES 14 with Intel Celeron Quad Core Processor, is quite High when looking at my E-Mail and those adds are running ,, I always “Close the Hotmail” before I open another window ,, Like F/B and start scrolling and clicking ,, I think my Note Book would get a “Hang” or unresponsive program alert from Google ,, “Aww Snap”,, I dont know what the i3 or i5 processor will do !!

Reply
Edy M.

April 30, 2016 at 8:01 pm

That’s the reason why I cancelled my Yahoo plus mail account. I was paying 19.00$/year and there is no technical support. Another way to put it, I am more interested in having the technical support side of the deal than the add-free side. Bottom line, there is no way I know of to contact Yahoo and it is very aggravating. Needless to say that the same thing goes to outlook.com.

Reply
Robert

May 1, 2016 at 7:06 pm

Guys,
Whether you have an ISP, Google, or Hotmail email.
In Outlook email client you can create an archive to have your email back up. So let’s say you are using your ISP email now if when you switch to another ISP you still have your emails from your previous ISP.
I hope I made sense, just trying to help as well.

Reply
- Ray Smith
  
  May 1, 2016 at 9:21 pm
  
  To be clear, archiving does NOT create a backup. That’s not its purpose. Outlook keeps all mails anyway and, whether you’ve archived them or not, they’ll still there after you switch ISP. So, why bother archiving? Well, as you accumulate more and more email, your Outlook Data File gets bigger and bigger – and as that file keeps on getting bigger and bigger, Outlook needs to use more and more of your computer’s resources in order to load it. What archiving does is move emails from the main Outlook Data File – the one that’s automatically load when you start Outlook – to a different Outlook Data File that isn’t automatically loaded. In other words, archiving is simply a way to stop Outlook slowing down.
  
  Reply
Jeremy Adderley

May 2, 2016 at 9:03 am

I thought having Office 365 wouldn’t require having to purchase the ad free option, but it looks like outlook.com still has ads. Maybe it’s because I have the student version of Office 365; however, it doesn’t really matter. I just configured Outlook itself for that account. I don’t need to purchase it anyway, because I have POP3 access. I had a bunch of e-mail that I haven’t checked in a year and more. Oh, well.

I don’t know if people before mentioned anything about having Office 365, so I thought I would give my two cents. Of course, I didn’t read all the comments.

Reply
- Leo
  
  May 2, 2016 at 12:59 pm
  
  Office365 and Outlook.com are unrelated to one another.
  
  Reply
- Ray Smith
  
  May 2, 2016 at 1:08 pm
  
  “I thought having Office 365 wouldn’t require having to purchase the ad free option.” You bought the Office apps; the email service – Outlook.com – was not part of the purchase.
  
  Reply
Gunars C

February 23, 2017 at 2:11 am

I’m in the UK, how come everytime I try to upgrade to adfree it takes me to the usa site and therefore, I cannot make payment. can you share a link for the UK payment for upgrading to adfree? thanks.

Reply
- Gunars C
  
  February 23, 2017 at 2:12 am
  
  I was talking about upgrading to adfree outlook.
  
  Reply
bjela

May 17, 2017 at 11:30 am

Hi. is it possible to get Microsoft support to check If you have been hacked in the past? like, If they find strange ip adress. If they just can say If it was hacked. I don’t want ip adress list. I just want to know If I have been hacked 3 years ago. it is imortant.

Reply
- Leo
  
  May 17, 2017 at 2:37 pm
  
  Perhaps if you get a lawyer to force them to, AND if they even happen to still have that information.
  
  Reply
Elizabeth

May 22, 2017 at 11:43 am

Leo how can I remove from outlook the pop-up “ad-free outlook” It’s take space same as 365 ad

Elizabeth

Reply
- Connie (Team Leo)
  
  May 22, 2017 at 12:26 pm
  
  I’m assuming you are talking about Outlook.com’s advertisement to encourage you to upgrade to the “Ad-free outlook.” The only way to remove it is to upgrade. In other words, to buy one of their subscription products.
  
  Reply
- Mark Jacobs (Team Leo)
  
  May 23, 2017 at 6:04 am
  
  That ad is the cost of “free”. Bugging you into paying to get rid of the ad is the reason for that ad.
  
  Reply
Brett

July 4, 2017 at 11:48 am

I have an ad blocker but Outlook keeps using up space telling me I can save space by signing up for Ad free Outlook. No way — what nerve they have using up space to ADVERTISE their product that will save me space.

Reply
- Mark Jacobs (Team Leo)
  
  July 4, 2017 at 2:16 pm
  
  If it isn’t that ad, you’d get another ad. That’s the price of free.
  
  Reply
- Leo
  
  July 5, 2017 at 2:19 pm
  
  Nerve? I call it the “cost” of free email.
  
  Reply
MC

December 28, 2017 at 2:47 pm

i don’t want upgrade anything just want the dam ad be removed, it is taken a lot space on my screen,I use HOT MAIL LIVE
i contact support with no avail, I don’t know how to remove it, I am an very old person , with same difficult in that area, and poor vision

Reply
- Mark Jacobs (Team Leo)
  
  December 29, 2017 at 1:51 pm
  
  It’s the ads which pay for the “free” email account. Microsoft is simply giving you the option to pay for the account yourself instead of receiving the ads. There is something to the old saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”.
  
  Reply

Ad Free Outlook.com – With Support?

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The bottom line for ad-free outlook.com support

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