account already exists

I have El Cap 10.11.2 installed. I recently upgraded from Yosemite. a few problems happened involving compatibility but i'll stick to one for this:

I can't add my hotmail account. the error I get is "account already exists". after reading several threads on several forums it seems that it's a problem with the fact that my iCloud account uses the same email address. but the only answer i found was something about login off from iCloud, and watching your pictures vanish and then adding the hotmail account, and THEN logging back on to iCloud?

Mail: Comcast account already exists

- talks about SMTP servers being the problem. however, the example shown doesn't look anything like any screen that i can find so I can't try that solution.

I'm trying to set up a new account in the Mail dialog for Accounts, but get an error message "This account already exist…

- also talks about this as a problem - but i also can't follow these directions because i don't have the same options that they talk about in the text)