Microsoft blocking GMail accounts from Live ID?

You might not know that you don't need to have a @hotmail.com or similar account type to enable access to Live Messenger or other Live services.

You can go to Passport, click the link under "Use an e-mail address you already have" and enter other e-mail address. This is very convenient because it allows you to keep using your current e-mail address in all Windows Live services, including Windows Live Messenger - except of course Windows Live Mail.

But if you have a GMail account you are out of luck. A friend has just asked me if I knew why Microsoft doesn't allow @gmail.com e-mail addresses to be used as a Windows Live ID.

I have no explanation for this message:

The portion of your e-mail address that follow the @ symbol is part of a "reserved domain" such as live.com, hotmail.com, msn.com or passport.com. Please type a different e-mail address.

No mention of "gmail.com" as being reserved anywhere...



UPDATE 1: as noted in the comments below, you can use @googlemail.com instead of @gmail.com and it works.

UPDATE 2: I have contacted Microsoft who confirmed this is not their intention and it was something related to other configurations. Registering with @gmail.com accounts is now possible again.


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