I’m constantly being told that my e mail server settings must be wrong so I asked my server for an update , usewd it – no effect on the outcome

Hi. I can get Hotmail, no problem but when I try to send a question to any manufacturer or stockist who's sent me a question form to fill in, I'm told that Windows Mail cannot send it because my server doesn't recognise my settings. So I reset them to the correct and up to date settings, with no improvement. Can anyone please help me. In case it matters to my problem, I'm running Vista Home Premium so I cannot go to Windows' Live Mail so (I'm told). The error code was 0x800ccc90, error number 0x800ccc92 but there have been another error number, 0x800ccc17 since I received this one.