Read receipts in Outlook.com

The read receipt feature is currently not available in Outlook.com

However when you have been updated to Outlook Mail (Preview) you will have this responding to read receipt option.

See snip below.

I don't see anything in the options above that addresses requesting a read receipt, it only asks how you want to handle a request from incoming emails.  I thought this was about requesting receipts for outgoing emails.

Exactly - the responses are about dealing with a read receipt when requested. From reading other posts it seems that there is no intention to provide this on outlook.com webmail. Other free webmail providers allow this facility.

To request a read receipt you will need to use an 'email client' such as Windows Live Mail, Outlook or Outlook Express. It is quite simple to set up and it works. The disadvantage of using an email client is that your mail is only stored on one device - unless someone tells me a way round this. I prefer Outlook Express to Windows live mail - which does not have 'identities' and seems to store each email in a seperate file.