I understand why a well established service such as Microsoft's Hotmail (or Outlook) would prevent passwords that are too short, but why limiting password length on the opposite side?

I am switching management of my passwords to a password manager that I set up to generate random passwords 18 characters long with all the possible special symbols. As an example:


That is a good process, because by changing your old passwords you learn about all the security holes in your previously used services.

So when I was changing my Hotmail account password I got this message:

Your password can't be longer than 16 characters.


What a dumb statement! Are they using something like DES encryption or a similar broken block cipher? Can someone explain this limitation to me?
When I try to log in to my hotmail/outlook account I receive this message:

 "
There's a temporary problem with the service. Please try again. If you continue to get this message, try again later."

I've tried several times on different days but no joy.

Any suggestions?


I have shared my documents on skydrive and can open them on my Ipad but cannot alter them. What step am I missing?

I AM USING MS OFFICE OUTLOOK 2007 AND TRYING TO SEND MY FIRST EMAIL MESSAGE.  THE CHALLENGE BOX POPS UP BUT NO CHARACHTERS.  NO AUDIO AVAILABLE EITHER.  DONT HAVE ANOTHER COMPUTER TO TRY AS THIS IS THE ONLY ONE I OWN WITH MS OFFICE INSTALLED. ERROR MESSAGE POPS UP SAYS I NEED TO CONTACT SUPPORT FOR FURTHER ASSISTANCE. IS THERE A WAY TO FIX THIS?

Receiving suspicious emails from PayPal claiming that I need to update my account info. Sender shows as my own email address.

Any help?

My new Surface 2 is not in sync with my SkyDrive.com files. I have auto upload turned on for camera (Lumia 620 with WP8) photos, but they are not making it to my Surface which still seems to be stuck syncing Documents from the cloud. The SkyDrive app shows 12 documents in progress for over a week now, and normal syncing seems to be held back as a result. SkyDrive.com is fine, all files are where they should be. Note that only Documents are avail offline, all other files are stubs.


Note that I have had several SkyDrive sync issues in the past, notably with the 8.1 Preview, but this is a brand new Surface 2.


Anyone know how to fix the logjam?

Thanks.

I have a friend who changed their email address.  I updated and saved the contact info.  now when I type their name to send an email, BOTH email address come up to select.  I tried to search for the old one to delete again, but its not there.  Why do the old addresses still come up in the "to" box?
I was satisfied with the way Outlook used to run with the delete button at the top of the page and subfolders where you could move things. For some reason the internet updated and now I'm using this new Outlook Web App. I think it is ridiculous and want to go back to the way it used to be. My boss still has the "old" version that I started with when my account was first created. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and more importantly how to go back to the other (better)version of Outlook that is not a web app? Any help is greatly appreciated because I lost some important documents when the switch occured and cannot access them with this new system.  Thank you.