I am looking for a way to have a number of separate hotmail accounts
all auto-forward emails to a master hotmail account.

I still want to be able to use the basic Outlook Express 2000 to look
at hotmails in the primary hotmail account, so not really after
special software at my end.

This is particularly useful for "throwaway" hotmail accounts you set
up for temporary use on the Internet and then remove them once the
spam builds up on them.  This protects your real hotmail account which
you never give out commercially.

Okay, you can easily do this with a free service from hotpop
(www.hotpop.com) as I have used this service to create alias emails
and to forward those emails to my main (secret) hotmail account which
no-one knows. This way I am protected from spam and other UCE. You can
create any number of alias emails and the bset part is that they dont
even have to be called something@hotpop.com as they have other cool
sounding alias names like username@phreaker.net @bonbon @punkass etc
etc etc.. One you have them setup the way you like and forwarding set
to post emails to your main hotmail account, you can set and
forget....if spam becomes a problem on any one of these alias emails
simply login to hotpop.com again and close down the alias.