FiddlerCap is a tool we use to capture explicit communications between your computer and our servers - the requests your computer makes and the response our server provides. When you run into an error using Hotmail or Windows Live Hotmail, the most valuable information we can use to resolve the issue is captured in FiddlerCap. (Windows Live Mail has its own error logging tool).

This tool will allow us to view the unencrypted data that is sent between your computer and web servers while the tool is capturing information. This means FiddlerCap can’t record your password for Live Hotmail, but we would be able to see what emails are in your inbox if you viewed it with the tool running. The information gathered using the tool is only used for troubleshooting of an issue you report to us, and we do not use it for data mining or other activities.

1.       To install FiddlerCap, click here and save the file to your desktop

2.     Once the installer has finished downloading, double click on “FiddlerCapSetup.exe” on your desktop

3.     Read the License Agreement and then click “I Agree”

4.     Click “Install”

5.     Once installed, click “Close”

6.     FiddlerCap will now open automatically.

7.     Click “1. Start Capture”

8.     A new browser window will open – use this window to navigate to www.hotmail.com and reproduce the issue you are having (for instance, re-opening a message which generated an error).

9.     Once completed, go back to the FiddlerCap window and select “2. Stop Capture”

10.  Click on “3. Save Capture”, which will open the save file menu.

11.  Click the “Save” button to save the capture file to your desktop.

12.  If you have an open ticket with Mail Customer Support, reply to the message you received from Mail Customer Support and attach the FiddlerCap SAZ file to your reply.

You can uninstall FiddlerCap by going to Control Panel and selecting Add/Remove Programs.

If you are using a MAC, you can provide us a network trace by following these instructions:

To perform the trace you'll need to open a terminal window and then run a command. To do that just follow the below steps:

1. Go to Applications
2. Open Terminal.app
3. Type in the following command "sudo tcpdump -s 0 -A -i en0 –w ~/Desktop/trace.dmp" (Make sure not to include the quotation marks)

4. You may be requested to enter your administrator password at this point

Once you've done that, open up Safari and try login to Hotmail. Once you've finished reproducing the issue you're having, we'll need to stop the trace using the following steps:

1.       Click back on the Terminal Window

2.       Press Control-C

3.       Send the trace.dmp file