Windows Live Hosted Domain Setup Information

If you want Windows Live Hotmail to host your e-mail service, you must authenticate (To help ensure that users are registered owners of a domain name, Windows Live Admin Center requires users to enter specific DNS information. Only registered owners of a domain name have access to the DNS information on a registrar's website.) your domain name (A unique Internet address, such as wingtiptoys.com. It is your personal or business address on the Internet.). You can use an MX record (An MX record specifies which server in your domain should receive incoming e-mail.) to authenticate your domain name. If you want to register a subdomain (A Web address that is a subdivision of an existing domain name. For example, subdomain.domain.com is subdivision of domain.com.), you must add the subdomain name to the list of domains on the Admin Center website. When you add your subdomain, you must also add the MX record at your registrar's website.

Important

The following steps are general and may not apply to your registrar (A company that is accredited to sell Internet domain names.). If you can’t find or edit the MX record information for your domain, contact customer support for your registrar.

To set up an MX record:

1. Sign in to Windows Live Admin Center with your Windows Live ID (The user name and password that you use to sign in to any Windows Live, MSN, or Office Live sites and services. If you have a Passport Network, Hotmail, or Messenger account, you can use it as your Windows Live ID.).
2. Under Your domains, click the appropriate domain.
3. In the left pane, click Domain Settings.
4. Under Administrator status, make a note of the MX record information and the DNS settings.
5. Visit your domain registrar's website, and then sign in to your account.
6. Find the management or DNS settings area where you can edit the records for your domain. If you have more than one domain, select the domain that you used to sign up for Windows Live Admin Center.
7. Delete or clear any existing MX records.
8. Type the MX record and DNS information, and then save your settings.

Note

• For a subdomain, the Host name for the MX record must contain the fully qualified domain name of your subdomain. For example, if your domain name is example.com and your subdomain name is subexample, the Host name will be subexample.example.com.
• Make sure that the settings that you type for your domain on your registrar's website match the settings in the Domain Settings section of Windows Live Admin Center.
• After you add the required MX record, your domain is configured for use with Admin Center. However, your registrar must propagate the change to the Internet. This may take up to 48 hours. Check theDomain Settings section on the Windows Live Admin Center website regularly to see if your changes have been made.
• When you transfer your MX records to Admin Center, your registrar doesn't change.
• If your registrar doesn't let you set a priority of 0, select the highest priority (the lowest number) that's available.
• With some registrars, the TTL (Time to Live: The time that a packet of information remains active on a network.) setting is optional. If your registrar doesn't allow you to set a TTL, you can ignore it.
  http://explore.live.com/domains/set-up-an-mx-record-to-authenticate-your-domain?mkt=en-us