The craziness of Windows Live Mail patch KB3093594
As mentioned previously, Microsoft has elected to discontinue the DeltaSync protocol of Windows Live Mail 2012 for Exchange ActiveSync. This is to be done using a Microsoft Installer patch filed under KB3093594, Update for Windows Live Essentials Mail 2012.
However this patch doesn’t appear to have been fully tested nor is it made simple to install.
Windows 10 support
Most importantly, after installing this patch, Live Mail will no longer work on Windows 10. Live Mail will open up, but within seconds it crashes with the standard, Windows Live Mail has stopped working.
This crash was repeatable on multiple machines of different bitness and Windows builds. The actual exception is an access violation in wcsync.dll (which is one of the patched libraries).
If you want to go ahead and try to install the patch or if you already did, you can revert/uninstall the patch by pressing 
-R (Windows Key and R) on the keyboard, then copy/paste the following:
msiexec /package {B775C26B-EAA8-4A11-ACBF-76E52DF6B805} /uninstall {342DCD5D-5946-453B-97AC-D53B7662EDF5}
Then press enter or click OK. When prompted, choose Repair.
Installation
Furthermore, even the installation of the patch (KB3093594) is simply awful. After running the .msp (Microsoft Installer Patch file), you’re offered to either Repair or Remove Live Mail. Choosing Repair is the only way to get it to install.
After installation, the version number of Windows Live Mail will change from 16.4.3528.0331 to 16.4.3563.0918.
Usage
Installing this patch does not add any new functionality to Windows Live Mail 2012. The only difference is that the DeltaSync protocol been swapped out with the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Live Mail still only allows use of Outlook.com/Hotmail/POP3/IMAP email accounts, and you cannot use your own Office 365 or Exchange server account. Additionally, push email support has not been restored, as Live Mail still uses Messenger to notify Live Mail for new messages. Unfortunately, this particular feature in Messenger has been broken since April 2014.
As much as we can appreciate Microsoft continuing support for Live Mail, certainly it would have been better if they fully tested this on the latest Windows version, as well as made it easier to install or just utilized Windows Update to deploy the patch automatically.
Posted on December 11, 2015, in Live Mail, Outlook.com. Bookmark the permalink. 39 Comments.
Jonathan Kay, MessengerGeek 
Thanks for the uninstall command, works like a charm.
BTW, I didn’t even get the “Windows Live Mail has stopped working” message – the window would just disappear after a few seconds. And then after every Windows restart, I would get a generic notification about a failed update, leading me to the Windows Update UI. Which, of course, had no information at all about this update.
Great job, Microsoft.
bonjour, pour moi personnellement vous pouvais tout lésser comme c’est en ce moment car tout fonctionne corectement que ce soi sur windows 7 et windows 10 parce que j’ai les deux moi je n’est pas de probléme que ce soi en messageri ou en messenger.j’ai même fait fonctionner windows live messenger 2012 et skype en même temps et tout va bien il n’y a pas de probléme de compatibilité.part contre ce que je trouve domage c’est au suget de messenger plus a priorie il son en trin de tout changer et je trouve sa domage parce que moi j’aime bien les fonction qu’i à.a ne pas confondre avec messenger plus for skype qui n’est pas du tout la même chose et en plus sur skype il n’on pas tout ce que windows live messenger avec messenger plus ont.et ce que je trouve domage c’est qu’il sont en train de suprimer des chose sur messenger plus, car avent on pouver changer l’apparence de windows live messenger avec l’intermédiére de messenger plus et maintenent on ne peux plus le faire, ce que je trouve domage,et si il pouver remètre cette fonction sa cerais super mes je pensse que si il on enlever ce n’est pas pour le remêtre?.je dit mon fond de pensser personnel, mes comme on dit chacun a sont aupignon et je ne vais pas aller contre, mes comme je le dit c’est dommage que l’on fasse quel que chose pour l’arêter quel que annèe apres,surtout des chose qui fonctionne tres bien,voila mon aupignon personnel,merci et a bientot peux être.
Hi! Sorry to say, that uninstall command didn’t really solve anything for me. I’m a heavy user of Outlook.com’s subfolders, and I have an entire ruleset that automatically sorts my e-mails into different folders depending on if they are newsletters, commercials and so on.
When installing the KB3093594 patch, Windows Live Mail 2012 stopped recognizing these folders altogether. The little arrow that indicates that a mail folder contains subfolders has vanished altogether. Uninstalling the patch using the instructions found here doesn’t restore WLM 2012’s subfolder recognition :/.
A solution that completely removes the patch and restores support for subfolders on Outlook.com is much appreciated. Thank you in advance!
Greetings Daniel. I’m afraid I can’t reproduce this exact problem on either an existing or brand new Live Mail install.
Regardless, uninstalling the patch isn’t going to fix your problem because by doing so you’re just swapping one protocol for another, and it sounds more like a database problem. Such problems won’t be addressed by rolling back in this way as the damage has already been done.
My initial response would be to simply tell you re-install the patch, then remove the e-mail account and re-add it. However, throughout testing this solution, I found repeatedly that when re-adding my account, some of my subfolders refuse to show all their respective emails. Therefore, I don’t think this is the best course of action as it just doesn’t seem to work properly anyway.
You can of course re-add the account without re-patching Live Mail and it should work fine again for now.
I think the best idea for the long-term is to re-add the account but choose to use IMAP instead. You can do this by toggling the ‘Manually configure server settings’ option when you go through the start of the wizard to add an account. When prompted, IMAP for Outlook.com is at imap-mail.outlook.com, port 993 and SMTP at smtp-mail.outlook.com, port 587. Here’s a screenshot that might help too.
Thanks Jonathan – I’ve gone down the IMAP route as you suggested. Have got all my folders back, thank goodness!!
Now I seem to have got duplicated “sent” folders i.e. a new empty “sent items” folder and then a “sent” folder with all my old messages,
Plus I had the same with Deleted and Deleted Items. Can you explain this to an old guy like me please!!
I have the same problem; all of the subfolders of my INBOX folder disappeared. Subfolders of other folders seem okay.
Creating a new subfolder within the inbox subfolder seems to have “unwedged” it and caused the subfolders to reappear.
When I installed the patch, WLM would no longer sync with the server — it would just remain stuck on checking for new messages. I signed out of my account within WLM, and that promptly had me lose all my subfolders. I then signed back in, and I still had no subfolders, and e-mail still wasn’t syncing. So, I uninstalled the patch (hit uninstall, not repair), then just reinstalled Windows Live Mail 2012, but I still had no subfolders.
Doing like ericlaw said seemed to work to unwedge an intial folder, but then stopped working for other subfolders. I discovered that by clicking “Work Offline”, then creating a new folder, then clicking “Work Offline” again for each subfolder location seemed to unwedge each, but it took me a while, having to go one by one and compare to Outlook.com.
So, now I’m back to the unpatched WLM, which is syncing my messages again, and I’m scared to try re-installing the patch.
I installed the patch and lost all the sub-folders from my personal folders.
Uninstalled WLM did a sytem cleanup with both McAfee and AVG PC Tuneup then re-installed WLM.
Sub-folders still missing so added a new temp folder to each of my personal folders – shut down WLM.
Restarted WLM and all sub-folders had returned – then cleaned out temp folders.
Now back to where I was before I installed the patch.
Should have known better than to install a patch without checking its validity, especially after I just got rid of the dreaded, persistent Windows 10 updates.
I’ve installed this patch on Win 7 a couple of days ago and initially things seemed to be working fine. But last night the syncing for my hotmail account stopped working. It doesn’t error out in any way, it just checks for updates and doesn’t find anything and no new emails get loaded into Live Mail. Obviously in other apps and outlook.com new messages show up. And my other non-hotmail accounts download messages just fine.
With the patch does something need to be done to server settings to actually use the EAS protocol for hotmail/outlook email accounts? I didn’t change any of my accounts and when clicking properties it still shows a connection address that includes DeltaSync so I am guessing it’s not using anything new.
It’s also strange that my DeltaSync seemed to stop working since I’m assuming if it was a global change/issue others would have reported it.
I downloaded the patch and tried to run it in Windows Explorer but nothing happened and so I clicked open and was asked what I wanted to open it with.
Windows seems to be regarding it as some kind og=f graphic file.
It installed successfully on another Windows 7 machine a couple of days ago.
Emails downnloaded with the patched version are missing all “Received: from” headers. They cannot be used for SpamCop reporting or any other situation where you need to check the origin to verify authenticity or troubleshoot mail routing.
Thanks for the instructions on uninstalling it
Strike 2…
Hi, Jonathan – I expect you have already seen the info in the above link, but just in case… I am used, now, to having a Messenger that shows no other users than my wife and daughter, and doesn’t log new emails; But I would really miss not having Live Mail. I hope they can fix it, and for W10. I guess they can’t get the staff.
It looks like it has been pushed as an optional update now on Windows Update. After I saw that, I came across the following updated known issues:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3093594
“Known issues about this update
Issue 1: After you install this update (that was released before December 17, 2015), you may find that the program crashes soon after start.
Solution: If you installed this update before December 17, 2015, you may have experienced a crash in the Windows Live Mail app soon after start. To fix this issue, download and reinstall the same update that’s described in this article.
Issue 2: After you install this update that’s released on December 17, 2015, you may experience mail sync issues.
This issue occurs because of a server-side problem. Microsoft is researching this issue and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available.”
So the first issue got fixed Dec 17, but issue 2 was not. Now MS has just sent out the Dec 17th release via WU, This looks to be the case if you check the info article. Or is the Jan 11th release new (with issue #2 fixed)?
The mail sync and calendar issue is not a minor inconvenience. Have they fixed the server-side problem and forgot to update the article? I am holding off until this gets sorted out.
Have you tested it Jonathan?
Hi, I had forgotten all about this problem and yesterday installed KB3093594, which was included in the general Windows Update.
Since my WLMail 2012 (hooked up to Outlook.com) was working fine and I had seen that support for WLM was being ended I should have excluded this update, however…
Anyway, operating WLMail is now like walking through treacle and the Sent box is behaving peculiarly, i.e. the sent mail is visible online in Outlook.com but not on the desktop in the client.
Even worse, I could not find the update in my Installed Update list to uninstall it!
This is even though it is there in the Update History.
I then tried the uninstall instructions given in the article, but all I got was a message saying the patch is not applied.
Help!
Johnathan,
Have you heard any more on this issue? I tried your uninstall suggestion, but it doesn’t work. In response to it I get a message that says “The patch is not applied to this product.” Are you able to use WLM 2012 at this point? Mine is still broken. Paul
Paul. I have done nothing – except get Outlook (2010) going – and found that WLMail 2012 works most of the time, though calendar sync has stopped and all entries have gone (but they are now in my Outlook calendar). I am also now observing something reported by another, namely the sporadic disappearance of the subject line in the Archive folder.
I have no problems with WLMail hooked up to another server (IMAP). But then my Outlook connected to Outlook.com also freezes sometimes, whereas this never seems to happen with the account connected to an Exchange server.
All very peculiar. Maybe Outlook.com has sporadic fits?
So the question is…………………….Will this be fixed by Microsoft.?…..I don’t understand why they hosed it up in the first place..
I would not be surprised if MS has given up on fixing KB3093594. They say there are still a few million Hotmail/Live users – maybe MS plans to just migrate them all automatically to an Outlook account, Nothing can stop MS from making a surprise policy change.
I thought they merged Outlook.com and Hotmail.com a long time ago, the only difference now being the email address itself.
Shaggee, in what way does the Hotmail-cum-Outlook.com affect this problem. I only came to MS’s mail a year ago when it was already Outlook.com. The problems reported arise with the Windows Live Mail 2012 client.
Massive problems in “downgrading” from Window7 to 10 circa Jan 2 2016, –even so Windows Live Mail 2011 worked well until 20 Feb 2016. The “Open WLM” resulted in a brief flash of the Windows Live Mail face page, followed by the dreaded scaling apparatus with overlay: “Windows Live Mail has stopped working”. Am unable to access Microsoft for help, as they have firewalled any human contact, it seems, and one is left to ponder the value. I even went so far as to do a “System Restore” back to Jan 2 2016, and WLM did not recover, while a whole lot of other issues pounced. Bud Sollitt
HA! I installed the patch mid-December 2015 with the same results “Windows Live Mail stopped working”!
I simply uninstalled and reinstalled Windows Live 2012…
un peu de traduction SVP
Well, the update has been pulled back two months ago and there has been no news since then. Meanwhile, some support pages (such as http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/mail-add-email-account-faq) say: Some email service providers have moved to newer email protocols for improved security and reliability. These email service providers may no longer work with Windows Live Mail.
This doesn’t bode well for the future of Mail.
bonjour,pour moi de mon coté je n’est pas de probléme a ce sujet
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