We're on Orange/Wanadoo, and over the past six months or so, sending email using OE has become ever more difficult. We often get an error message that says "your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection" with error number 0x800CCC0F. I'm convinced that there's nothing wrong with our computers. Nick Salmon
Microsoft has an excellent Knowledge Base article: How to troubleshoot error messages that you receive when try to send and receive email in Outlook and in Outlook Express (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514). Error 0x800CCC0F is often due to a Symantec/Norton problem described at http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001060516275506.
But I suspect you are correct: there is nothing wrong with your systems except the random operations of the Orange/Wanadoo service. Try switching your outgoing (SMTP) mail setting from port 25 to the authenticated port 587, which should work more reliably. This is an internet standard, not specific to Orange/Wanadoo.
If that doesn't solve the problem, bear in mind that you can use Outlook Express or Thunderbird with Google's Gmail. This is free, and does not lock you into a particular ISP. Google also lets you use your own domain name, in which case you are not locked into Google either.
