The link posted is of no help My main problem is under settings-Alerts & SMTP. I've added my hotmail account under SMTP in alerts but under SMTP I'm not sure as to the "Server Address" for my "Windows Live Mail" and can't find any info as to how to find it or what it is. any ideas?
You don't put your email in the server address, that would have something like smtp.yourispname.com and the From address is any valid email that will be what is shown as who sent the email.
Open the Windows Live Mail (sorry I don't use it so will be guessing based on OE6) WLM, Tools, Accounts and right click on your default email account, select Properties, select the Server tab and that will give the server address. If you have to give a user name and password (authentication) in the WLM to send email you will also have to enter those details in the
You then need to set-up who is to receive the alerts (your hotmail email address). The Alerts section of the Program Settings deals with this, you will see a sub section SMTP within Alerts. Click the smtp and then the Add button, SMTP and you will get a pop-up, Net Alert Address, enter your hotmail address here.
See image having completed the SMTP server settings and any authentication, then set-up an smtp alert email address you can click the Test button on my image and that should send a test alert to your hotmail account.
Now all of the above is dependant on your having a normal pop3 email account that you can send email from. If you only have a hotmail account which is a webmail account you won't be able to do that because it doesn't use the normal SMTP protocol to send email.