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Near-final Windows Live Essentials suite released

Dec. 15, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Windows Live Essentials has, um, essentially arrived.

Don’t be confused by other sites: This is not a beta release. What you’re seeing is the near-final version of virtually every Windows Live Essentials application and service being released today. (The big exception is Windows Live Movie Maker, which has been dramatically updated but will be in beta for several more months; yes, it’s now usable.)

To download the suite, visit the Windows Live Essentials Download site. If you’ve already got the beta version of the suite installed, good news: it will simply update everything that needs updating. (I was originally told you’d have to uninstall the beta version first.)

This version of the suite includes some old standbys, such as Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live Toolbar, Office Outlook Connector, and Windows Live Family Safety. But there are some new additions, too, including Windows Live Sync (installed if you have also chosen Windows Live Photo Gallery, so you can do PC-to-PC photo library sync, which is awesome), Office Live Add-In, and Silverlight.

New icons can be seen across the suite, which is, well, sweet. And Messenger, especially, has been significantly refined.

I’ll be using Windows Live Essentials a lot this week and will have a review ready soon.

UPDATE: Apparently Microsoft is referring to this release as a “beta refresh” which has caused a bit of silliness like this. I want to be clear here. I note above that this is not a beta release because that is what Microsoft told me. But you can see for yourself that the beta tags are gone from the About boxes as well. You know, whatever. :) People do love to be pedantic.

Discuss this Article 30

puzder
on Dec 15, 2008
Agreed, the suite looks great. I too am looking forward to spending time with this. So far ... good job MS!
x3haloed
on Dec 15, 2008
Woohoo! This Windows Live Wave 3 stuff is exciting. It's too bad I can't get my Windows Live Sync to connect to the server. Says the proxy server might need to be configured. I'm guessing Sync doesn't connect through port 80?
techfan
on Dec 15, 2008
Awesome! I am a big fan of the Software side of Windows Live. I just updated all the Windows Live apps I have and WLM, my favorite of the suite, looks great! Even the sign in box of Windows Live Mail looks nice, though I wish it was glassy, like in Wave 2. The icons are nice, too. (I wish MS would update the Mewsgroup) icon though.) Windows Live Essentials is a peek at how Windows 7 will look and I loves me what I sees! :-) The addition of a Sync button in the Mail side of WLM is nice. Much better than have it on Newsgroups. Looking forward to your review Paul!
mdsharpe
on Dec 15, 2008
Nice, although Photo Gallery crashed the first time I tried to set up sync. More importantly for me, I am still unable to sign in to Messenger on Windows Mobile.
SandmanX82
on Dec 15, 2008
Quick question...does Messenger work with AIM names?
johnbaxter
on Dec 15, 2008
Nice, thanks Paul. (I had already struggled with the removal on my laptop--which didn't work. I think that resulted from recent beta installed over earlier beta, leaving an odd Windows Live Beta blah blah item in Programs and Features, and nothing for individual programs. revoUninstall got rid of it (fairly cleanly, I hope. Will find out soon. (The beta is listed sensibly in Programs and Features for the more recent installation under Bootcamp on my iMac.) Paul, in your review, please cover Live Mesh beta vs new Live Sync issues: any reason to keep the Mesh over Sync at this time? And it was nice of them to hold the release until you were safely out of Redmond. ;-)
Waethorn
on Dec 15, 2008
The old http://get.live.com sends you to the old installer in case you only want to get non-beta software.
techfan
on Dec 15, 2008
Nice! If you change the folder/account color in WLM, the color of the message's subject also changes. I like that :-)
RunTimeError
on Dec 15, 2008
Heh. http://download.live.com/ redirected me to the Mactopia page. Guess I'll wait tuntil I get home from work to check this out on the Visa box :-)
kadarzsolt
on Dec 15, 2008
Is it just me, or the new version will not minimize to tray and not stay minimized at all? I'm running Windows 7 build 6956
Waethorn
on Dec 15, 2008
Something interesting: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/
lotsamystuff
on Dec 15, 2008
"Guess I'll wait tuntil I get home from work to check this out on the Visa box :-)" Or the MasterCard box... ;-)
Waethorn
on Dec 15, 2008
Ok, so I was right.
kadarzsolt
on Dec 15, 2008
Update to my post: I have upgraded Live Suite on both my Windows 7 PCs and there is a strange behaviour: 1. Tray icon and the possibility to minimize to tray is gone 2. After closing the Messenger main window minimizing Firefox 3 brings the Messenger back to front, instead of leaving it minimized. 3. There's a second window that opens with Live Messenger, showing only your picture and status. I am not sure what the purpose is with this
techfan
on Dec 15, 2008
@kadarzsolt: Re: no icon in the tray. That might be by design in Windows 7 I don't remember where it's discussed (though it's well worth it to watch the entire presentation), have a look at this PDC 08 session video. Note when the presenter asked how many Outlook icons can be seen on the desktop. http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC24/
shark47
on Dec 15, 2008
The Live Essentials suit comes with one of the 12 most vulnerable apps in the world, by the way: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2304
johnbaxter
on Dec 15, 2008
RunTimeError, I'm not surprised that the link diverted you to Mactopia--I've seen that behavior before. And it's almost reasonable, in that Live Sync is/will be cross platform, but the downloaded Acme installer kit certainly isn't. I'm not sure how they provide (will provide?) Sync for Mac.
kadarzsolt
on Dec 15, 2008
@shark47 : also, your kitchen is packed with weapons that could harm, injur and even kill you if not used correctly. so don't go in there if you are afraid!
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 15, 2008
shark Nope. The version of Messenger that's on the list is NOT the Windows Live Messenger that went to RC today, it's MSN Messenger versions 4.7 and 5.1. Those versions werereplaced by MSN Messenger 6 in 2003. (and 7 in 2005 and Live Messenger 8 in 2006 and 8.1 in 2007 and 8.5 in 2007 and the new version, Messenger 2009 in early 2009, which is the one that's discussed in this post) Now, it's not your fault that the bozos writing the article felt that they needed to list a Microsoft product in the list even though none met their criteria so they listed a version of an app that's been out of production for FIVE YEARS. On the other hand, I would blame ZDNet for giving that paper publicity with that big a flaw. On the other hand, you might note that while NO current Microsoft software made the list, the most vulnerable app was versions 2.x and 3.x of Firefox and that all three of Apple's major PC software products (Safari, iTunes and QuickTIme) came in at #5 (although also specific older versions, to be fair)
yert
on Dec 15, 2008
Yes Paul, I love being pedantic. Maybe its a southwest thing.
realtestman
on Dec 16, 2008
Mike I agree. If you also notice, they misspell the name too. There's no such version as "Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger", it's either "MSN Messenger", "Windows Messenger" (note NO Live name - this is the built-in XP client that was also subsequently released for 2000 and 2003) or "Windows Live Messenger". If they are talking about versions 4.7 and 5.1, then they are talking about either "MSN Messenger" or "Windows Messenger", or indeed both. They don't point this out at all. Not only that, they have forgotton about 5.0 - are they saying that that between 4.7 and 5.1 it DIDN'T have any vulnerability, then it did then it didn't again? So Shark is completely wrong. I agree with your assertion about the article, seems like bad research altogether, deliberately trying to find news in something where there isn't news.
subzerohitman721
on Dec 16, 2008
So now we are reduced to finding fault in older versions of software that is no longer being used to scare people today from Windows or Microsoft products? The apple has definitely fallen far from the tree. Can we keep any security discussions on current used hardware and software? Now the I.E. flaws, thats fair game. But scaring people with 5 year old instant messengers is downright desperate. That would be like looking for vulnerabilities in Mac OS System 7 and trying to scare someone in 2008. Even that is below pathetic and shouldn't be tolerated.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 16, 2008
subzero It's actually even more silly than that. I can understand a security company talking about old versions of products having flaws since the companies they consult to very often haven't upgraded some software but an IM client typically won't even run if the version is too old and will require an update to talk to the servers. This one was just silly.
patrick_stephens
on Dec 16, 2008
I'm on a WinXP laptop for work and I ran the install and the Movie Maker wasn't part of the install. I think I removed the old beta that was causing other issues. What do you think could be the problem here?
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 16, 2008
patrick_stephens From the System Requirements page at http://download.live.com/SystemRequirements.aspx Operating system: Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32-bit edition only), or Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit editions). Note: Windows Live Movie Maker is not supported on Windows XP
patrick_stephens
on Dec 16, 2008
Well there ya go. Thanks Mike I didn't see that.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Dec 16, 2008
patrick_stephens Yet another reason to get your work laptop upgraded to Vista :-)
Waethorn
on Dec 16, 2008
"Yet another reason to get your work laptop upgraded to Vista" ....or yet another reason why IT should be locking down PC's.
Waethorn
on Dec 16, 2008
"That would be like looking for vulnerabilities in Mac OS System 7 and trying to scare someone in 2008. Even that is below pathetic and shouldn't be tolerated." Mac OS 7 or scaring someone about it? Don't laugh, but I've had visitors in my store that still claim to use Windows 98 - AND ON THE INTERNET, NO LESS! Scary!
anonymous
on Dec 16, 2008
Esta semana se ha liberado una nueva versión de las famosas aplicaciones de Windows Live (Messenger,

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