OK from the top. (Moved and renamed the post - hope this is OK.)
a) CAS works reasonably well with Windows live mail client. It filters mail and imports email accounts OK. The only limitation is that it does not automatically import contacts lists whitelists - but these can be imported by other means.
b) People using windows live mail may want to access hotmail.com or live.com server accounts. If hotmail or live.com access is all you want it for then there's a problem because CAS currently has a bug that affects authentication to these services and I cannot find a work around.
c) If you want to use CAS to access accounts on other email servers, then we can probably sort the problems you are experiencing out. Sounds like there is a problem with the installation. So you should:
(i) turn OFF spam filtering in the installation routine and skip the import of email account details (you can do all this later).
(ii) Finish the installation, reboot and see if the CAS icon appears.
(iii) If the CAS icon does not appear follow the instructions in this FAQ,
here, item 3).(iv) If it does appear open CAS and go to the email accounts section and choose 'import'. Your email accounts should now be visible. Import them (all except any hotmail ones). If the accounts are not visible follow (iii) then try again.
v) Then follow the steps
here to import contacts from your email client to create whitelists
vi) Read 'before you install', and when comfortable your whitelists are complete enable the challenge response policy. Alternatively enable the alternative spam filtering policy until you have built up your whitelists.
Hope this helps
Mouse