back to article Microsoft releases Windows Live apps suite

Microsoft slapped a new bunch of Windows Live updates onto the interwebs yesterday in its latest effort to knit desktop and cloud computing together. The company made a set of free apps available to allow Windows 7 customers to connect, create and share docs online. The software updates to Windows Live Essentials 2011 include …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    With apologies to the pythons

    Maitre D: And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin install.

    Windows 7: No.

    Maitre D: Oh sir! It's only a tiny little thin one.

    Windows 7: No. F--- off - I'm full... [Belches]

    Maitre D: Oh sir... it's only wafer thin.

    Windows 7: Look - I couldn't install another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.

    Maitre D: Oh sir, just... just one...

    Windows 7: Oh all right. Just one.

    Maitre D: Just the one, sir... voila... bon appetit...

    [Windows 7 somehow manages to stuff the wafer-thin install into its mouth and then swallows. The Maitre D takes a flying leap and cowers behind some potted plants. There is an ominous splitting sound. Windows 7 looks rather helpless and then explodes, covering waiters, diners, and technicians in a truly horrendous mix of half installed apps plug-ins and parts of hardware. People start vomiting.]

    Maitre D: [returns to Windows 7's table] Thank you, sir, and now the check.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Live essentials

    Far from being bloatware, I use the sync features of live essentials to share documents across all my PCs and back them up on Skydrive, it's all free and works perfectly. Any review I've read praises this stuff and most wonder why Microsoft don't advertise it more as it really is useful. My only problem is the skydrive is restricted to 2GB, I hope they announce a paid service and all my photos would be up there too. Well done MS, some people appreciate what you're doing and the slant this article takes is tired and pathetic.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      That sounds amazing ...

      Wow, it's like Dropbox, but with less storage

      How do i sign up???

  3. Ian Stephenson
    Thumb Up

    ...runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7, but not Windows XP.

    Another reason to stick with XP.

    Thanks MS!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    aaaahhhhhh

    Truly great! One more reason to stick with XP, as with IE9, it's one more MS virus that I don't have to worry about infecting my PC.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      aaaaahhhhhh choooooo!

      Yep, you stick with XP as the world moves on and more holes open up in it. The rest of us will use Windows 7 and enjoy a modern PC experience.

      IE9 ( is actually looking quite good! Try the Beta, it's pretty speedy. Maybe not enough for me to ditch Chrome but far removed from the antiquated IE6.

      I did turn to Apple with a Macbook Pro, but damn MS bringing out half decent stuff! They just need to get all their different departments talking to each other and improve interoperability of all their software. It does seem to be moving in the right direction.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oh No friend....

        There's always another OS, and many,many other software vendors that produces something better that doesn't require "long term investment".

        "The world may be moving forward" with Windows 7, but many of us are moving away out our own tangents and making progress.

        Enjoy your modern PC experience.

    2. Dan Watson
      WTF?

      Or...

      ...you could install Windows 7 and not download the add-ons in the first place. Which was what I thought was the point of Live Essentials in the first place.

  5. Piro Silver badge
    Pint

    Bloatware?...

    I actually think some of this is useful.

    Certainly, Windows Live Photo Gallery is actually a pretty neat photo organising tool. Alright, so that's the only one I currently use, and the others might be gash, but it's not all bad.

    1. Anomalous Cowturd
      Pirate

      @ Piro

      Ex seaman by any chance?

      I've not heard the word gash used in that context for years...

      Have at you, landlubbers!

  6. Pandy06269
    FAIL

    People are spending more time in the cloud

    Are they really? Anyone?

    I recently bought Office for Mac. Desktop, not cloud. I have VMware on my PC to run my test servers locally. Again, desktop, not cloud. My photos will soon be hosted on my own website. Server, not cloud.

    In fact the most cloudy stuff I do is Facebook and Twitter which I doubt you can even call cloudy - just social networking.

    I know of no-one who uses Windows Live, aside from MSN on the desktop. Some people use Facebook Chat but it's appalling. No-one I know use Office in the cloud, or Google Apps for that matter.

    I'm well known for my paranoia, so I don't trust anyone else with my data.

    Anyone out there more trusting, and have a more cloudy success story? Do tell.

    1. Bassey

      Yep

      > Anyone out there more trusting, and have a more cloudy success story? Do tell.

      Yep. As well as backing up our two PC's to a local NAS I also replicate all our Documents, music and photos to SugarSync. I, too, am paranoid but I'm paranoid about losing all the irreplaceable digital photos of the kids growing up, wedding photos etc. Having them backed up "to the cloud" makes me feel a little better.

      More on topic, I find the DVD authoring tools in the Live Essentials movie maker to be very good. The video editor itself does the job although there is better shareware out there. However most of them ignore DVD menu authoring as they all assume people will publish to Youtube etc. For making quick family DVD's to send to the in-laws overseas it is really very useful and the price is perfect.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have you used any of it?

    Kelly, interested to know if you've tried any of the apps, they've been available in beta for a while.

    Far from being bloatware, Live Mesh, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker are excellent FREE tools. I guess we can all do without the Bing toolbar and I've not tried Live Writer, although it seems to get decent write ups.

    Bloatware indeed. Thought I was reading the tiresome Lawrence Latif on the Inquirer for a minute!

  8. NoneSuch Silver badge

    Wait for it

    Should Microsoft succeed and end up combining the desktop and the cloud, all of your private and confidential documents will end up indexed and available on Bing one day. Mark my words...

    PS. Bloatware on Windows is like putting bacon on top of ham.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Linux

      not quite.

      Bacon on top of ham siunds like a rather good idea. You can never combine too many pork products.

      obligatory "you windows people should all use linux" rant goes here.

      I'm off to make a bacon and ham sandwich.

      1. Ian Stephenson
        Thumb Up

        Sounds good...ish

        Might I recommend a layer of gammon between the bacon and the ham?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows Live Mail slowly reaching OE level

    Very slowly, Mail is getting back to Outlook Express level. At least icons are back. You can't decide when to expunge your IMAP folders, anyway. Despite its security flaws, OE was a fast and simple to use mail client (no, I hate webmail. I have my own mail server, several account, and several folders in each. Webmail is slow and clumsy - I use it only when I can't use an email client)

  10. John Munyard
    Happy

    Reasons to upgrade, part 1378

    Remind me again - what's a cloud?

    My life in IT is strangely hanging together perfectly fine without it whatever it is. <shrug>

  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Tired of being the grumpy old guy.....

    ......who wonders why we need to use cloud computing at all. PC's are more powerful than ever, and networks can be managed effectively so that everyone has the same version of the apps. I know why the vendors want us to use it, as underneath the accessibility/convenience moniker it's pure and simple control.

    Keep us using their stuff, know exactly what we do and how, and when the time comes, charge us for it. We don't pay, they cut us off, no aftermarket of used software to worry about. TV/Movies are moving into the cloud, and once they can get it working in the bandwidth we'll have portal based gaming and forget all about consoles or PC's.

    But it's the enthusiasm of business people and some IT for "the cloud" I don't get. Sure, rather than use your 8-core processor and 16GB of ram for work it's better to use it as more of a terminal, why not? And forget about security and privacy, just upload everything from your meeting videos to your company documents to your financial stuff.

    Big difference between your network and your people and some free website run by who knows. But you have an account, don't you? Must mean you're safe. And anyways anything older than a year is ancient history and we don't need to worry about archiving or storing it, besides there's infinite disk space, don't you get it? And no one's just going to fold and away.

    And it's so convenient! We can share and collaborate! Never mind that's been true since the first network, and it comes down more to the people involved in how well it works than any shiny new tool.

    If all this free stuff doesn't work too well, or can't share data between each other like we're supposed to in this magical post-who-needs-a-PC Nirvana, it doesn't matter because by the time you figure it out you'll be on some new trendy thing anyways.

  12. Daniel Harris 1

    Live Mesh...?

    I'm suprised Live Mesh is in the release...since Live Mesh is not being developed any further (Much to my annoyance as it's great at synching documents).

    So seems like a strange one to include, unless i've not heard and they have decided to continue offering Live Mesh?

  13. eugene

    heh

    funny, when macs come with iLife, it's a great feature. When Windows comes with Live apps, it's bloatware. tsk tsk tsk.

  14. Chezstar
    Coat

    Good on ya Dell!

    Every single Dell machine I get my hands on (As I recommend Dell machines for a fair few clients looking for standard type systems) immediately gets the install disc thrown back into the drive, and in she goes for a full reformat and reinstall.

    I've never had one of the Dell branded systems delivered to a client with the stock / out of factory install in place. Who knows what someone has loaded on there by accident / what virus or malware has snuck in? No thanks.

    So go for it Dell, install yet another package to go alongside the billion other trial editions of anything you can find, it all disappears under the mighty install disc at boot time :)

    Mines the new one with fresh, empty, sleek pockets!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Insidious Fail

    "Cloudiness" is not a problem for me - unlike many previous posters. Though my home network is pretty nifty, the work situation is different: I can't possibly offer local services with the same capacity and reliability as those offered by "cloudy" data centers.

    On the other hand, this Microsoft cloud misses the OTHER half of the point. Running clouds at work means that I can offer services that are browser and platform independent. Through careful choices, you can avoid lock-in products, leaving users free to use anything they like. No matter where I happen to be at work, no matter what computer I sit down at (Linux, Mac, or Windows), I can hit my cloud apps and know that they're going to function for me.

    By contrast, Microsoft's cloud appears to be structured around the use of Microsoft applications running on Microsoft operating systems.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wouldn't even mind so much if the stock weren't a total turkey.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Download it here! Windows Live Essentials 2011

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=59fbc955-a9cc-4fb1-84dc-db88e9882ed3

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