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Office Live Small Business is now closed. Most customers have already moved their website, email, and other data to Office 365 or another provider. But if you have questions or have run into problems, the most common questions and answers are here:
Q: I just found out about the OLSB closure – when and where was this announced?
A: The decision to discontinue OLSB and to focus on Office 365 for professionals and small businesses was first announced in October 2010. Since then, we have given updates in blog posts in the Office Live Small Business community and sent regular email messages to customers (using the email addresses they gave us). There were also on-screen notifications every time that OLSB administrators signed in to their OLSB accounts.
If you are just hearing about this now, all is not lost. You can still retrieve a lot of the data you had on OLSB, and some things (like email on Hotmail and documents on SkyDrive) aren’t affected at all by the OLSB closure.
Q: How can I recover the website content, email, and documents I kept on OLSB?
A: A lot of your data isn’t affected by the closure, and much of the rest can be recovered.
Email:
Website:
Your website was taken off the web when OLSB was decommissioned. However, you can get back a lot of the website page content including words, images and documents by getting a .zip file of the archived data.
Documents and photos:
Domains:
If you used a custom domain with OLSB, it has been released and is available for you to move to Office 365 or another provider.
If you got your domain through Office Live Small business then your domain registrar is Melbourne IT. You can keep your domain with Melbourne IT or move it to another domain registrar. If you need help from Melbourne IT you can open a support request at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or call them.
Q: Do I need to cancel my OLSB account?
A: No, all accounts have already been cancelled as part of the OLSB closure.
Q: Have my documents on SkyDrive by deleted? Will they be?
A: No, they won’t be deleted. You can still use SkyDrive by signing in with your Windows Live ID.
Q: Can I keep using email in Hotmail, but not move my website?
A: If your email address ends in @live.com, @hotmail.com, or @msn.com, then nothing has been deleted. Go to www.windowslive.com to sign in.
If your email address ends with a custom domain (like fourthcoffee.com or contoso.com), then you need to update the domain records in order to make sure that you can access your email. If you want to move your email to Office 365, then you can follow the instructions in either Move your website to Office 365 (US/English). or Move your website to Office 365 (Not US/English). If you want to move your email to another provider, see Move your website to another provider.
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Q: Can I get a free trial for Office 365?
A: Yes. Everyone who signs up for Office 365, gets a free 30-day trial. After 30 days you can change your trial into a paid subscription if you want to.
Q: Where can I get help with Office 365?
A: The Office 365 community support is an excellent resource for all questions regarding Office 365 for professionals and small businesses. There you can get online access to answers, how-to resources, and other Office 365 customers as well as ask your own questions of the Office 365 community.
Q: I do not remember the username and/or password I used to sign up for Office 365 for professionals and small business.
A: Requests for password resets should be directed to Office 365 support.
Q: How can I recover my website data?
A: Office Live Small Business has saved copies of the public websites for most of its former customers. You can download .zip files with this data to your computer.
To get a copy of your public website data:
Note: Microsoft offers this data “as is”. If you run into problems, please go to the OLSB wiki in the Office 365 Community.
Q: How can I get my documents that I had stored in Office Live Small Business?
A: Office Live Small Business has saved copies of the documents for most of its former customers. You can download .zip files with this data to your computer.
To get a copy of your documents:
Q: How do I move my website to Office 365?
A: Follow the instructions in either Move your website to Office 365 (US/English). or Move your website to Office 365 (Not US/English).
Q: How do I move my domain and information to another provider?
A: See Move your website to another provider. Each provider has different steps, so you will need to contact them for details.
Q: I moved my website to Office 365. The URLs are different and this is going to affect page rank on search engines. How will my customers find my new site?
A: You can create a redirect page that sends people from the old URL to the new one. Please see Maintain web page URLs from your Office Live website.
Q: I followed all of the directions, but I still can’t see my website.
A: Make sure you have followed instructions for step 7 Move your website to Office 365 (Not US/English).
Q: Melbourne IT sent me email. What do I do with it?
A: If you purchased a custom domain through Office Live Small Business, that domain is registered with Melbourne IT. That means that you can contact them for help with your domain, and can go to their website to access or change your domain records.
You can use those records to move your website and email to Office 365 or another provider. To use Office 365, you can follow the instructions in either Move your website to Office 365 (US/English). or Move your website to Office 365 (Not US/English). To use another provider, see Move your website to another provider.
Q: Can I use Melbourne IT if my domain name ends with .jp or .fr?
A: Melbourne IT does not manage these domains directly. Instead, your .jp or .fr domain will be managed by the existing registrar on record for your domain name in Japan or France. If you want help with this, you can open a support request with Melbourne IT at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or call them.
Q: I followed the directions to move my domain, but I haven’t heard back from Melbourne IT.
A: Look for an email message from Melbourne IT and make sure that it didn’t go into your junk mail folder by accident. If you have checked for this message and haven’t received it, please contact Melbourne IT by opening a support request at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or by calling them.
Q: How do I recover my domain key from Melbourne IT?
A: Melbourne IT will send you an email message with the domain key. Check your junk mail folder to make sure it wasn’t sent there by accident. If you have checked for this message and haven’t received it, please contact Melbourne IT by opening a support request at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or by calling them.
Q: What is my IP address?
A: You will not need the IP address for your domain if you are moving to Office 365. Make sure you have followed the instructions for Step 6 in Move your website to Office 365 (US/English). If you want your IP address for another reason, your domain registrar (such as Melbourne IT) keeps a record of it for you.
Q: What do I need to do to move my domain if I registered it through another domain registrar?
A: You can keep your domain at your domain registrar, but you should move your email, website, and other data to a new provider. You can follow the instructions in the following documents, but when Melbourne IT is mentioned, you will need to contact your domain registrar instead.