I maintain  2 computers, each with 3 user id's. All use Windows Live mail desktop (Windows Essential 12) with Live email addresses. The computers were recently upgraded from Windows 8 Prof to Windows 8.1 Prof, using Windows Update.

All users have experienced synching issues between email accounts on these machines. These issues have been ongoing, prior to the upgrade

After reading through the posts on this site re: "synching", I could see no reason the two machines were not in synch.

I checked the delta synch versions in the properties of said ID's. they were all at 1.1 (I think ... in any case 1.x)

Then I looked at the delta synch version on another Win 8.1 PC and saw it was 2.0

I removed the unsynced ID's, then re-installed them. Now the servers are using Delta Synch 2.0. All ID's synch correctly.

I have two questions:

1. Why is  Windows Live Mail Desktop not included in Windows update???? Or at least a notification of outdated Delta Synch version with instructions ...?

2. Is there a newer version of Windows Essentials beyond version 12? I See a "newer" versions when I do a general search, , but none downloadable from a MS cite. What's with that?