I have found others complaining about this problem online, but no resolution offered by Microsoft other than to delete the email account on the Android device, and then add it again. That doesn't work for me, as it did not work for the others.

I have no problem sending and receiving email for my very old Hotmail account on my Windows 7 laptop or my iPad. I can receive email on my Droid X which runs Android 2.3.4, but I cannot send email. I get a very cryptic "authentication error". Verizon help told me that I should not be trying to use a Hotmail address, because it is so old. Also that Microsoft frequently changes the configuration for Outlook/Live without providing the necessary information to Verizon, and that I should not be trying to use any Microsoft email service on my Android phone because Microsoft is hopelessly screwed up.

There are only so many settings that one can change in Android's universal email app. It's the SMTP server or the port or the credentials. No one at Verizon can help; they say that my settings are all correct.

Because I have used my Hotmail account as my primary account for so many years (since before Microsoft bought Hotmail), I am using it everywhere for credentials, including all of my Microsoft accounts (I am a professional web developer using, among other things, Visual Studio, ASP.Net and SQL Server). This is my username on many other websites. I would really, really hate to give it up and switch to one of my other email accounts (such as my gmail account). However, if I continue to be completely unable to send Hotmail from my Droid phone, I guess I'll have to leave Microsoft.

Can you help?