Thanks to Firedog, my Live Mail resumed working beautifully using IMAP protocol in the last few weeks.

But 2 or 3 days ago, I had problems even composing a message. I got distracted by a repeated message: 

'TCP/IP connection unexpectedly terminated by the server'.

This meant that the message could not be sent, no matter how many times I tried.

Even deleting messages was not possible - the deleting process went on and on indefinitely.

I couldn't believe my bad luck. Why had this happened?

In short, I had to return web mail which is crude compared with Live Mail.

Firedog, I think you are the only one to discover why IMAP failed and to suggest a solution.

I am counting on your advice. 

Teresa Rudolf informed me you had got her email working. (She said her anti-virus software AVAST was to blame. I told I use Windows Defends, also part of Windows Essentials)

Looking forward to your help.

Eddie