Forums use Windows Live Alerts to notify a user of any activity on a Forum thread. Activities include replies to a message, marking someone else’s post as answer, etc…
Users can subscribe to Forum Alerts through the following:
Note: Any of these actions will automatically send a subscription message to the Alerts service. You don’t need to subscribe to Forums manually via the Alerts website.
1) When replying to a post, the user will see an option (check box) “Alert Me”. Checking this box will automatically subscribe the user to that thread.
2) When starting a new thread, the user will see an option (check box) “Alert Me”.
3) When viewing a thread, the user can click on “Alert Me” on the top left corner of the thread.
Troubleshooting Steps:
1) E-mail address: Verify if the sign-in live ID is from a Microsoft or non-Microsoft domain account.
a. If you use a non Microsoft domain account (i.e. gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc…), make sure that you're able to send and receive mail.
b. If you use a Microsoft domain account such as Live.com or hotmail.com, make sure that the you've “activated” your Live ID by signing-in to www.hotmail.com . In certain cases, you may need to validate or activate your Live ID for mail usage. Send a test message to verify
2) Validate that the Live ID account has been provisioned through Windows Live Alerts. To verify:
a. Login to http://alerts.live.com using the same Live ID when signing in to Forums
b. After signing in, the user maybe prompted with the following: "Your new Live ID e-mail address has been validated and can be used to receive alerts......"
c. Click on Continue to provision the live id account for Alerts notifications.
d. subscribe to a thread. After subscribing, reply to the same thread. The user should receive Forum Alerts to his/her e-mail address
3) Validate if the user is getting subscribed to Forum notifications:
a. Login to http://alerts.live.com using the same Live ID when signing in to Forums
b. Click on “Your Alerts” on the left rail
c. If you don't see any subscription to Forums, re-subscribe by following one of the methods mentioned in the section: “Users can subscribe to Forum Alerts”
4) Create a new mail enabled Live ID account: If the Forum User is still having issues receiving live alerts.
a. Create a test hotmail account
b. Login to Forums using the newly created hotmail account then complete the steps for creating a profile
c. Follow steps 1 to 3.
Community Forums Program Managers
