(frequently asked questions)
Updated 11 July 2007
Please use this document. As questions come up, we add info to the FAQ, so you can help us keep the work load light by looking here for answers before sending us email.
This service is free. Because of that we do reserve some rights to limit your use of disk space and network bandwidth. We now have plenty of space, and bandwidth isn't usually an issue unless you start doing a site with streaming video or something. We have no problem with people using their accounts for business, but if you plan on doing extensive e-commerce or require 24x7 support, consider getting a business account with a full ISP for that purpose.
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Paul's original and primary goal was to provide a domain which is independent of the various ISP's he was trying out at the time. Every time he changed providers, he changed email addresses. Not anymore. Then he did it for a few friends, so he could keep track of them more easily. And so it goes.
It is Paul's server, so he decides who can join. His general goal is to provide a place for ex-Microsofties to have a fairly permanent email address.
As of August 2001, we are no longer creating accounts for people who were interns or contractors but never full-time employees. We are receiving too many requests, and encountering too high a rate of name conflicts. The few existing t- and a- accounts on exmsft.com will be maintained.
We are not providing "commercial accounts". You are welcome to use this address for your consulting business, etc. as long as you make it clear that exmsft.com is not your employer. You are welcome to conduct commercial activity on your web page, but neither exmsft.com nor Paul Canniff personally are responsible for any financial or other costs associated with server down-time or other problems. Furthermore, if you put up a web site that becomes a burden on the system, we will remove it. By burden we mean several thousands of hits per day, or a lot of streaming video. So don't post a porn site and expect us to handle 20,000 hits a day.
Finally, if your account name at Microsoft is unavailable on this server for any reason, then we will not give you an account. Perhaps another former Microsoft employee has already claimed "your" name, or perhaps it conflicts with another account on the server. Either way, you are simply out of luck.
Email forwarding only. A few old-timers host POP mailboxes or web page accounts here; currently, however, we are adding no new such accounts.
Basically, you tell us your real email address, whereupon we will forward any messages that we receive in your name to your real account, be that on AOL or MSN or Halcyon or wherever. When you move to a new email address, we change the forwarding info. You have to notify us, of course: there is no telepathy involved. From this point on, your friends can send mail to you at exmsft.com and it will semi-magically arrive in your mailbox on SeaNet or at your new job in the Senate or wherever. Keep in mind that when changing forwarding, you may experience a delay of a week or more if the operator is out of the office, though usually it takes 2-5 business days.
Not at all. Microsoft Alumni Network is a separate entity with different, complementary goals. Ditto for Microsoft. :)
You must learn to accept disappointment. We will tell you that it is a Pentium running Linux. Maybe it will run NT or FreeBSD some day. It has a nice T1 (or faster) connection to the Internet. For email and web questions, see the appropriate sections of this FAQ.
In brief: first you send us mail, then we confirm your identity, and finally we give you an account.
To get a account, send us (info@exmsft.com) the following information. (Your message subject should declare I want an exmsft forwarding account to ensure that your account request doesn't disappear into the pervasive cloud of spam that bedevils all public service accounts. Otherwise, we may never see it.)
Try to send us this info from your microsoft.com account. If you do, we usually don't need references. If you have already left Microsoft, we'll need the email addresses of two or three current full-time Microsoft employees who can vouch for you. Send us a list of 2 or 3 people -- please, not a dozen -- and format the list so that one of us can paste it into an email message, e.g., paulc@microsoft.com,rustyw@microsoft.com.
You might want to give your a references a heads-up, alerting them that we'll be contacting them. References don't always get back to us, and if we don't hear from them, you don't get your account.
If you send this from the Microsoft zune or xbox domains, or from your "Easy ID" alias, we may add a confirmation step to ensure that your Microsoft email alias is correct.
Once we've created your account, we will notify you via email. The creation of a new account takes a little while to propagate through our system, so please be patient. Your new exmsft address will start forwarding its messages to your mailbox about a day after we create it.
(Microsoft employees: thank you for your assistance in validating user account requests!)
Because we occasionally receive fraudulent requests for Exmsft accounts. While some are laughably transparent, there have been plausible ones as well. And the principals and operators of exmsft almost certainly don't know you personally. Rather than make some people feel singled out for suspicion, we ask everyone who has already left Microsoft to provide references.
We won't ask much of your references. For example, if you send us mail from super_steve@linuxd00dz.net, asking for the address steveb@exmsft.com, we will end up asking your references, "Did you work with one Steve Bartowski aka steveb, and if you did, does he today send mail from super_steve@linuxd00dz.net?" Note that we're not concerned with to where you want your messages forwarded, but rather with from where you sent your request for the account. In other words, this is as much an authentication issue -- are "you" who you say you are? -- as an endorsement that somebody by your name once worked at Microsoft.
Your references must be current full-time employees of Microsoft. No exceptions. We will not accept the names of former employees, even if they have exmsft accounts. Nor do we accept references from vendors, past clients, or the like. And I'm not going to pore over business cards, old pay stubs, Blibbet buttons, MSA memberships, photographs of you sitting in Gordon Letwin's lap, sincere long-distance telephone calls, or the like... the value of what we're providing here just doesn't justify the overhead. I am sorry. If it's a problem, please take it up with my boss.
If you don't know the name of even a single person who will vouch for you, then you've been away from the company for a very, very long time. (Or perhaps you left recently, but under a titillating cloud of scandal! How intriguing! ... naaah.) And after this long, nobody thinks of you as etaoins@microsoft.com, so they're not likely to try etaoins@exmsft.com on a whim. And you don't personally identify with the company any more: you've had many years of other email identities and professional affiliations. To sum, there isn't much use in an exmsft user id for you. Either way, if despite its uselessness you still want an account here, you will need to find some current references and get back to us.
Please do not give us a list of twenty names and say "I don't know how many of these folks are still there." Do your homework, find out who you know is still there, then get back to us.
Yes, absolutely.
We have no provision for people to dial in directly. So you still need some way to connect to the Internet, usually via an ISP such as MSN, AOL, Halcyon, etc.
Furthermore, we do not host your mailbox. We offer mail forwarding only. You will need another account elsewhere to send and receive mail.
Nothing.
For the old-timers with shell accounts, we have no set limits on web space, email traffic, or any of the other things that sometimes cost extra. However, we reserve the right to suspend any account which is used for Spam, any website which is used in a way that attracts excess traffic (1000+ hits per day, which nobody on here is even close to now), etc. If you need more than 15MB of disk space, no problem but let us know in advance.
In the past Paul has hit up people who were using a lot of disk space for $25 each and used the funds to buy a new disk. We have a lot of space now and don't expect any more voluntary levies in the future.
No. I'm sorry that you didn't get your name.
The only real value of an exmsft account is in helping folks who once knew you as, say, steveb find you at your new mailbox. Nobody's going to know to mail steveb242_iz_l33t at exmsft. Furthermore, by claiming a username not your own, you take somebody else's future legitimate exmsft alias.
There are no shortage of other forwarding services out there. Please use one of them instead.
Alternately, you can try to talk the current holder of "your" username into giving it to you. Perhaps they no longer want or use it. Wouldn't hurt to ask.
(Note that anybody found harassing a current exmsft account user will be permanently blacklisted from this system, even if that account user subsequently agrees to cede his or her account. Be polite!)
Exmsft does not provide a list of subscribers, in order to protect privacy and reduce junk mail. If you know someone's old email address, try sending to that address at exmsft.com. If they signed up and kept their info current they will get your mail. Otherwise, it will come back to you undelivered. We won't help you find people, because we don't know who wants to be found and who is avoiding you.
MSA provides an online directory to members, which sounds like a good way to do mutual alumni networking.
No. The internal address book is a private Microsoft resource.
Your exmsft email address is xxx@exmsft.com, where xxx is your user name.
We do not offer service for the firstname.lastname "Easy ID" names introduced in September 2005.
Your mail is being sent to your current email account some place else, so you don't check exmsft.com itself for mail. Keep on using your normal email program configured as usual.
You may want to set the reply field, if you want users to always reply to your exmsft.com account. This can be handy, since people get used to seeing and replying to your "permanent" exmsft.com address and not your current "real" address, which you may change later. Here's how to set your reply field using some common email programs:
Some providers will allow you to supply your own exmsft.com address in the From as well as Reply-To. This is extraordinarily handy, since your correspondents will then only see your exmsft address. Whether it works depends entirely on which provider you use; e.g., it does work with Comcast, but not with MSN. For more information, talk to your provider's tech support.
Note that forwarding accounts do not have their own POP settings or passwords.
If want to use exmsft.com as your primary mail server, you will need to configure your email client (Outlook, Eudora, whatever). Set up your email program, and provide it with your exmsft user name and password.
For any fields needing info about POP3, use exmsft.com.
For SMTP server, use your ISP's SMTP server or use exmsft.com. If you use exmsft.com for your SMTP server I need your IP address. See above.
If you have been forwarding mail from your exmsft.com account to some other location, you will need to cancel that forwarding before you can use the account as your primary email system. Delete the file .forward from your home directory on the exmsft.com server.
If you have a fulll acounnt, but you want to use exmsft.com as a forwarding account, create or edit the file ".forward" in your home directory. In it just put the place to send the mail, e.g. foo@halcyon.com.
Send us mail with your new email account info and we will change the forwarding.
Ideally, you will send this message from your old account, cc-ing the new account. If you forget to do this and so have to change forwarding after you've lost the old account, please name the old account in your message. If you've forgotten the name of the old account completely, we'll have to verify your identity somehow, which is always a hassle.
When mailing us, don't forget to include your exmsft account name, too. Over the last ten years, we've managed to accumulate quite a few users. The operator servicing your request may not know you.
Most likely, you do not have this account.
If you do, then in your home directory there is a file ".forward" that contains your forwarding address. You can edit it, create it, delete it as you see fit.If you are not capable of editing this file, consider converting your account to a forwarding account and we will do it for you.
To create the .forward file, use any method you enjoy, but here is one for those of you who don't know much about Unix or FTP:
No. Mail to your old Microsoft account will bounce until ITG recycles your alias, whereupon that mail will reach a stranger with a name somewhat similar to yours. Remember, we have no association with Microsoft.
If you have a forwarding account, which you probably do, then you don't have a password. Most of the accounts that we have created in the past three years are forwarding accounts.
Otherwise, if you really do have a shell account, old-timer, then you have a password. While we can't recover that password for you, we can grant you a new temporary password. Send mail to info@exmsft.com. Such email is usually written in either a terse style, or with the "I can't believe how dumb I am" kind of humor. Your choice! Feel no shame!
Your temporary password will usually consist of a inside joke ("favorite" vice president, etc) followed by some digits. Since you'll receive that password through the mail, we expect you to change it at your very earliest opportunity. Please see the next item.
Remember: forwarding accounts don't have passwords. Most of the accounts that we have created in the past three years are forwarding accounts.
If you do have a password and want to change it, log in to your account using the program PuTTY or another ssh client. (For ssh purposes, your server is exmsft.com and your username and password are the ones I sent you when you set up the account.) At the UNIX prompt, type passwd. It will prompt you for old and new passwords. That's it.
If you change your login password, your Frontpage password doesn't automatically change with it. Use the old password with Frontpage, or tell us that you changed your password (we don't need to know what it is, just that you changed it). There will be a longer delay than usual, as the current system operator doesn't use FrontPage, but he'll figure out something.
You've followed the instructions above for changing your forwarding address or your password, attempting to connect to exmsft.com, but after supplying a username and password PuTTY exits instead of presenting a shell. Most likely you haven't attempted to log into this account for many years, if ever.
Your account has been locked. We barred interactive access to all shell accounts being used only for POP mailboxes after suffering a security breach several years ago. Just send us a note and we'll restore interactive access to your account. Alternately, if you're just using your account for forwarding, let us know and we'll convert your account to a forwarding-only account, which doesn't need passwords, shell access, and the like.
If you get an error from exmsft.com saying "We do not relay", then you ran into our lovely anti-spam security system. For background information, see the spam story.
For existing users, this problem will occur if you change ISPs or if your ISP changes your IP address. The latter can happen due to any number of things, such as upgrades of the ISP's equipment.
You can fix this problem in one of two ways: (1) use your ISP's server for sending mail, or (2) send us your current IP address (usually this is done during your initial account request).
I strongly prefer that you use solution 1 when possible
Solution (1) -- To use your ISP's SMTP server for sending mail (as opposed to receiving mail), in your email program change the "SMTP server" to be whatever your ISP says it should be, e.g. halcyon.com or smtp3.worldnet.att.net, whatever. The SMTP server for MSN users is smtp.email.msn.com .
Solution (2) -- To send me your current IP address: Follow the instructions for getting your IP address.
If you are on the road and your IP address keeps changing, please consider using your ISP's SMTP server. It will be much easier on me than adding and removing serveral IP addresses during your trip.
Part of Hotmail's junk mail filtering system removes messages that are not sent directly to that particular Hotmail account, because many spam mails are sent with nobody on the To: line. So, mails to "foo@exmsft.com" that get forwarded to "foo@hotmail.com" look like spam to Hotmail.
a) One solution is to scan your junk mail folder occasionally, and when you find mail to your exmsft account, use Hotmail's tool to mark the sender as not being a sender of junk mail. (Thanks, Mike, for figuring this out!)
b) A possibly more comprehensive solution: Logon to the Hotmail.com web site, select Options, then Mailing Lists. You can add myname@exmsft.com as a mailing list address. You can also enable this from the Junk Mail folder; if you select a message addressed directly to your exmsft account and press "This is not Junk Mail", it's one of the options on the next page. Advantage: You only need to set this once, and then you don't have to filter on each user who sends to the exmsft address. Disadvantage: If your exmsft address makes it into spammer lists, this will negate at least some of the spam filtering. Thanks to Danny for this tip.
If you are testing the validity of your exmsft forwarding by sending messages to yourself from your Gmail account, Gmail will cull the message in the apparent interest of preventing infinite forwarding loops. Instead, test the account by sending a message to yourself from another account. Even another Gmail account will do.
If you are not sending this mail from your exmsft registered account, please CC that account and include the exmsft username in your mail.
Providing an email address to Microsoft exployees since February 1996.
Not associated with Microsoft itself in any way at all, except for an amazing demographic coincidence concerning our previous career choices.
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