Back in October during PDC2008, I highlighted the Windows + Windows Live relationship. Specifically, I called out how Windows + Windows Live will complete the Windows PC experience with Windows Live Essentials. Now that people can experience the relationship first-hand with Windows Live Essentials today – I thought I’d re-approach and discuss the topic in a little more detail.

Today, users are increasingly expecting that their PC (and their OS) allow them to do things on their desktop that have an online component such as e-mail. This is where Windows Live Essentials comes in. For example, when you’re at home on your laptop you can use Windows Live Mail, but when you’re on the go you can access that same mail from any computer with an Internet connection by going to Windows Live Hotmail. Windows Live Essentials combines what you do on the PC with what you do on the Web. That’s the benefit of software + services.

Many of the Windows Live programs within Windows Live Essentials serve as a “bridge” to the Windows Live services:

• With Windows Live Messenger, you can not only chat with your friends via IM, but also follow What’s New with them on Windows Live, which means you can stay on top of updates they make like new photos or blog entries.
• With Windows Live Writer, you can publish new blog posts to Windows Live Spaces.
• With Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can upload your photos to Windows Live Photos and share them with the people you choose.
• With Windows Live Mail, you can sync your Windows Live Hotmail e-mail and calendar to your PC.

Windows Live Essentials extends beyond Windows Live as well. Windows Live Writer is capable of publishing blog posts to most major blogging services, not just Windows Live Spaces. As a matter a fact - I use Windows Live Writer to publish all my blog posts here on this blog, which is powered by Telligents’ Community Server. Windows Live Mail supports POP3 and IMAP allowing for multiple e-mail accounts from a variety of e-mail providers including Gmail. And Windows Live Photo Gallery supports custom plug-ins for uploading photos to a variety of photo sharing websites (check out this awesome plug-in for uploading photos to Facebook).

For Windows Live Essentials, we have introduced 3 programs as the successors to programs that were introduced in Windows Vista:

• Windows Live Mail is the successor to Windows Mail
• Windows Live Photo Gallery is the successor to Windows Photo Gallery
• Windows Live Movie Maker is the successor to Windows Movie Maker

We made this change because we learned that many of the end-user experiences need to be updated more frequently. With Windows Live Essentials, we feel we are in a better position to innovate on these programs and enhance your experience as a PC user and at a much quicker rate - as they are outside of the Windows OS.

Windows Live Essentials doesn’t just consist of the above 3 programs, it also includes Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Toolbar, and Windows Live Family Safety adding significant value to PC users through its integrated and powerful features.

Windows Live Essentials today are free, key applications that make it easy to manage multiple e-mail accounts, edit and share photos, chat with IM for PC users and available today for you to download at download.live.com (available for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and the Windows 7 Beta).

In the coming weeks, I plan to dive deeper into many of these integrated and powerful features (many of which I use myself) that I that I hope you will enjoy.

I have said this before and I am going to say it again. Windows Vista gives the user an unprecedented level of control, compared to older versions of the Windows platform. This despite minor setbacks from Patch Guard, Kernel Mode Code Signing and the User Account Control. And “Turn Windows features on or off” is just such an example. I managed to come across this functionality when my Windows Vista Business operating system installed by default without the games that ship with the operating system.

Initially I blamed the operating system and the limitations associated with a modest Windows Experience Score. Since my graphic card is mediocre to say the least, but just enough to run Windows Aero, and on this machine I do not need more, I thought that there was a connection between the lack of horsepower and Vista settings which did not allow me access to the default games of the operating system. Nothing could be further from the truth, after all the games also ship with Windows Vista Home Basic, and this version of the operating system is created to run on low end system configurations. (more…)

business operating system, games, graphic card, Hardware, hard disk space, horsepower, kernel mode, system configurations, uac, vista, Windows, windows experience, windows features, windows platform

Just because Windows Vista is such a resource hog, the operating system features the Windows Experience Index, a rating system designed to measure the capability of the computer’s hardware configuration in order to assess the overall performance of the machine through a numeric base score. The algorithm for determining a base score ranging from 1.0 to 5.9 is directly connected with the processor, physical memory (RAM), graphics, gaming graphics and the primary hard disk. However, there are a few contexts in which the Windows Experience Index, the mechanism at the basis of the system rating will present and erroneous score for the hardware configuration.

This is a problem observed following the commercial release of the operating system back in January 2007. (more…)

commercial release, Hardware, hardware configuration, hardware configurations, hard disk, memory ram, microsoft, operating system, physical memory, ram graphics, random access memory, resource hog, video card, vista, Windows, windows experience