Windows Live email account verification

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I’ve learnt that some Windows Live email (Hotmail) account users are repeatedly asked for account verification. This generally happens when one is about to send an email. A simple message – “We need to ask you to verify your account. After you do that, please come back and click Send again. This helps us fight spammers.” – is displayed at the top and the system waits for your actions; refer image below.

Hotmail account verification message

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Some subscribers are completely taken aback with this account verification message; anyone who’s been using Windows Live email for years will be! Many simply don’t know how to proceed and the ones who do, find themselves stuck at the next step. So I thought of putting up this page which will explain why you get the message to verify Windows Live email account and what you should do.

Why are you asked to verify Windows Live email (Hotmail) account?

The message to verify a Windows Live email account is usually shown when one is about to send an email. The exact reasons why this message appears is best known to Hotmail – we can only speculate.

Verification of Windows Live email account requires you to decipher a set of 8 characters shown in an image. The aim is to ward off spammers – automated programs or even humans who abuse the service by sending loads of email messages in a short time. Subscribers have to prove that they are legitimate and are not misusing Hotmail to send junk e-mail. For details, please read why does Hotmail ask me to verify my email account?

The verification prompt may be displayed when:

The above were just some of my guesses and I would love to hear from you.

What to do when you are asked for Windows Live email verification?

Detailed instructions on what to do when asked for verification of your Windows Live email account are given below; please follow the screenshots in the slideshow.

  • Slide 1
  • Slide 2
  • Slide 3
  • Slide 4
  • Slide 5
  1. Click the “verify your account” link in the message. This shall open a new browser tab/window – [Slide 1].
  2. You’ll see an image with a set of 8 wavy characters – upper and lower case alphabet with a few numbers thrown in sometimes – [Slide 2]. This is a CAPTCHA puzzle
  3. Is it difficult to make out these characters? You can either choose to get a fresh set or click the small button with the speaker image to ‘hear’ the verification code – [Slide 3].
  4. If you are not be able to provide the correct answer the first time, a new set of 8 characters will be displayed – [Slide 4].
  5. The verification process is complete once you successfully decode the 8 characters. Click the “Close” button in the message to return to the previous screen and send the email – [Slide 5].

By the way, if you’ve received an email message asking to verify the Hotmail account, it’s most certainly a phishing attack. Please read that article for details.

Hotmail Security