Password not recognized connecting to windows live from windows mail

I discovered that there is a problem to connect to Windows Live from within windows mail. The password I used worked fine to connect to Windows Live from within Explorer but login didn't succeed from within windows mail.

After I changed my password to a simpler one within Windows Live it is possible to connect from windows mail with that password to.

I didn't look further to discover what was giving the problems. My old password had a length of 16 characters and included @#%^ characters.

Problem would be clearer with correct terminology:
Windows Mail is the email client which came with Windows Vista.
Windows Live Mail is an email client that you download with Windows Live Essentials.
"Windows Live" is too general to tell what you're referring to.

OK.

When I sign up to windows live (via Internet Explorer and web-page login.live.com) the password works.

When I use the email client Windows Mail Live and from within this mail-client I connect to windows live (so I can lookup my calendar) the password doesn't work.

When I change the password into a "simple" password it works fine from both ways.

rvlaming said:

...When I change the password into a "simple" password it works fine from both ways.

I'm surprised it does that. Of course I have never tried using "@#%^" as part of any password but I'm not as security conscious as others. It's possible Microsoft has different rules for WLM than for Live.com. I do remember a situation where an application I wanted to use with the Live.com login wouldn't work for me since I was using an old style "@msn.com" email address login instead of the newer "@live.com" style. If enough people report your password observation to MS, maybe they'll fix it.

BTW, since the login is supposed to be in the format of an email address, I'm surprised you could ever get away with two "@" symbols in the same address.

In my email-adres I offcourse have one @-sign.
But in passwords I use often the "shift-characters" that are on the numeric-buttons on my keyboard. The mentioned characters are an example and not the real "shift-characters" which I used.

However it's strange that when you login to the same thing (windows live) it works different from the web-login-page compared with an other user-interface (windows live mail in this case).

rvlaming said:

In my email-adres I offcourse have one @-sign.
But in passwords I use often the "shift-characters" that are on the numeric-buttons on my keyboard.

Of course, you were talking about passwords. Sorry.
How are you going to resolve it? It seems like if you want to use WLM in "signed-in" mode using on-MS-server contacts, you need to change your password. You still also have the option of setting the option to "never sign in" and use WLM as Outlook Express or WM with local WLM contacts (but not the User/Contacts folder in Explorer which is completely separate from WLM in either case).