MHL wrote:

Using Window Live to forward mail from other providers is slow.

Don't know if paid accounts are different. For free Hotmail accounts,
you can only forward to other Live/Hotmail domains (i.e., Microsoft
allows you to relay your e-mails inside their mail organization, not
outside of it).

If, in non-Hotmail accounts, you are forwarding their e-mails *to* your
Hotmail account, how long before that forwarding occurs depends entirely
on the sending mail service. Without knowing your actual setup, I'll
make one up as an example.

AccountISP = Your e-mail account at your ISP. Forwards to Hotmail.
AccountHotmail = Your Windows Live Hotmail account

You cannot configure AccountHotmail to forward to AccountISP. It's not
an available option in free Hotmail accounts.

If you configure AccountISP to forward to your AccountHotmail, how long
before a new e-mail that arrives at AccountISP then shows up at
AccountHotmail depends on how fast is the turnaround at AccountISP. It
is likely AccountISP is just a normal e-mail send/receive service and
not specifically an e-mail relaying service. They are designed to
received e-mails that get deposited into a mailbox and sit there waiting
for you to poll that mailbox. Their forwarding feature means they grab
e-mails that are bound for your mailbox and reroute them for sending but
this could get batched up along with perhaps having lower priority. You
would have to discuss with AccountISP how fast is their turnaround for
when they receive an e-mail to when they then later forward it. This
presumes that whomever you can contact at your ISP can actually find out
how their mail servers are configured.

You can look at the Received headers to see:
- The Date field in the e-mail. This is *data* added inside the message
by the sender's e-mail client and may not reflect when they actually
sent that e-mail.
- When the sender's e-mail was accepted by the sender's mail host.
- When your ISP's mail host received that e-mail from the sender's mail
host.
- When the e-mail was received by Hotmail's mail host from your ISP's
mail host.
Then you can tell where the delay in delivery might exist. By tracing
back through the Received headers, in top-down order (your receiving
account back to the sender), you can see what are their timestamps and
through what mail hosts that e-mail got routed.

Is it faster using other providers first to fwd to Windows Live?

You don't have a choice. Free Hotmail accounts will not forward to
"other providers" (i.e., non-Live mail hosts).

other providers --XXXX-- forwarding ---XXXX--- Hotmail

Free Hotmail accounts will only forward to other Live/Hotmail domains.

Hotmail --- forward --- Hotmail

The only forwarding direction you have between "other providers" and
Hotmail is:

other providers --- forward --- Hotmail

Again, look at the Received headers in the e-mail that arrives in your
Hotmail account which got forwarded to there by your other provider.
That will show where are the delays.

Unless the other provider is actually a relaying service (which
immediately forwards e-mails), forwarding performed at an end-point
e-mail service provider will probably incur a delay to batch up those
forwarded e-mails. From a trial back many years ago of an e-mail
provider (name withheld) that I no longer use, they batched up their
forwarded e-mails and sent that batch once per hour. Don't know how
they perform now, though. They weren't designed to be an e-mail
relaying service but rather an end-point service to where you received
and from where you retrieved your e-mails.

Also note that if you reply to forwarded e-mails that you will be
divulging the account from which you send, not the original account from
which you forwarded that e-mail. If you have AccountISP forward your
e-mails to AccountHotmail, your Hotmail account is shown in the headers
when you reply to that e-mail, not your AccountISP. So the senders will
see that they sent to one domain but replies come from a different
domain. Due to e-mail phishing and spoofing, those senders may not
trust your replies. They sent to but got a reply
from . Do those senders who know you at your
e-mail identity at your ISP also know your e-mail identity at Hotmail?
You can try to lie by setting the From (and Reply-To) fields in your
e-mail client to point at your ISP's account but the headers in your
sent e-mail will show that it instead came from your Hotmail account.
If you sent e-mail to but got a response from
, would you trust that reply?

Forwarding is not the same as relaying. The forwarded e-mail will show
the headers added by the sender's mail host and the forwarding mail
host's headers. If you ever forward that forwarded e-mail, like when
replying to a sender but adding the original e-mail as an attachment,
those recipients can see you are forwarding e-mails through your ISP to
your Hotmail account (and wonder why you are hiding behind a forwarding
service). Relaying services don't modify the headers. They are
transparent. So the e-mail you receive in your Hotmail account would
never show that it went through the relaying service. ISPs and e-mail
providers may provide a forwarding service but they are not a relaying
service. Some relaying services will modify the headers so any replies
you make to those relayed e-mails will go back through the relaying
service. The relaying service replaces the headers with their own, so
the sender that sent you an e-mail at the relay domain will get a reply
from you that is also showing it came from that relay domain. The
sender won't alert that the sent one place but got a reply from
somewhere else.