Ahh guys, I think I know what the problem is and I ran into it last month when I installed my Win8.1 RTM Preview *thanks for the link, Mike!*.
When I tried linking any of my Email accounts including my primary Verizon.net webmail (POP-based) account to the Win8.1 Mail Tile App; it failed. Weeks of research told me that Microsoft is not allowing ANY POP-based webmails to work their Win8.1 Mail App!! You must have either IMAP or E-Sync (Exchange Server 2012 or better) protocols. This leaves many people out such as folks that have Verizon *like I do*, Charter, Cox, and quite a few others. Help files with Windows8.1 and on the Microsoft Knowledgebase offer you a suggestion such as calling your Provider to see if they can switch your Mail Account over to one of these new protocols. Soooo, I called Verizon 2nd Level Email Support, and the Tech laughed as he said I was the first person he spoke with who even asked the question. He then put me on hold for 10 min. while he ran off to ask his Supervisor about it. Supervisor didn't know, he went off to ask his Manager and so forth. Finally, 25 min. later, they came back with an answer for the Tech I spoke with and they said "Yes, we know what it is and why you need it; but we don't currently offer that conversion option for Verizon Customers". Ummm..I think that translates to "We'll call you, don't call us" in English. I asked them if they would have it ready in a 1 yr., 2 yrs. 5 yrs, etc.-they had no idea!
Having been an E-mail Administrator in several companies up to 5,000 employees I've seen this sort of thing before. Microsoft rolled this Mail App out and didn't fully test and communicate with the large ISPs. Just last week I've heard several stories of other people running into this same problem with various large ISPs outside of California.
Anyway, the suggestions about opening up an Outlook.com account and then linking all your other E-mails to that account is a great idea; except in my case you can't link the Verizon.net account to Outlook.com *I got that last year as soon as the service became available to get the Email address I wanted*. So, I'm stuck using multiple E-mail Apps; what else is new? I use Windows Live Mail 2011 on my Vista system to read my Verizon.net; and Outlook.com to read my Win8.1 E-mail. Haven't tried to link in my Gmail and Yahoo! accounts for fear of overloading my Outlook.com inbox.
I have not tried using Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013 on my Win8.1 as my Outlook 2010 expired and I could not afford the re-up fee. And I'm waiting patiently for a Customer to dontate an Outlook 2013 copy to me. That's certainly an option that will be worth exploring. I'm just not convinced that the new Outlook configurations will support the POP==>IMAP/E-Sync conversions without an external conduit source( free?) from a 3rd party company.
I'm pretty sure this will frustrate a lot of other people who are on legacy POP-based Email with the big ISPs such as Verizon and Charter; maybe Microsoft can look into working with the ISPs mentioned and providing options; even if they are fee-based I think many of my Customers might be open to that, as long as their is an integrated solution available to them.
Thought you guys would appreciate my research on this...
BIGBEARJEDI