Recently, I was at a friend’s house when they handed me their BlackBerry® smartphone and asked why they had received a message from blackberry.com stating that their email account required re-confirmation. The message they received stated the following in the opening paragraph:

“You must confirm your email account password on your BlackBerry device by July 1st, 2010 to continue sending or receiving email messages for this account. Microsoft Corporation requires Windows Live email account users who use mobile devices to validate their accounts every 360 days. Other email accounts on your BlackBerry device will not be affected.”

My friend wondered what this message meant exactly, and why they had received it. Here’s what I told them, to help clear up any confusion:

If you are using a Windows Live™ (Windows Live Hotmail, MSN or Bell Sympatico, for example) email address with the BlackBerry® Internet Service, you must re-validate your account every 360 days for security purposes. Three days prior to re-validation, Research In Motion® (RIM) will send a PIN message to your BlackBerry smartphone to let you know that re-validation is required.

The steps to re-validate your account are listed below:

1. Locate and click on the Setup folder.
2. Within the Setup folder, click on Email Settings.
3. Highlight your Hotmail email account, click the Menu key and select Edit.
4. Enter your Hotmail password and press Submit.

Completing these steps will re-validate your account and allow you to continue sending and receiving your Hotmail email messages on your BlackBerry smartphone.

If you have a Windows Live email address – or any other email address – that you would like to integrate with your BlackBerry smartphone, please check out my previous post “How to set up a personal email account on your BlackBerry smartphone”.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment!