Windows Live Essentials 2011 has finally came out of Beta with the final version released today. Windows Live Essentials 2011 is a collection of software products like Live Photo Gallery, Live Messenger, Live Mail, Movie Maker, Writer and Windows Live Sync. Although there is no official change log, Windows Live Essentials 2011has some nice features like the new Ribbon UI, slicker interface and support for Windows 7 jump-lists.

This is the first stable release of the Windows Live Essentials 2011 available for download. However, Microsoft’s official download site offers just the web installer of the package which requires a constantly ON internet connection during the installation procedure which takes quite a while. 

So for those who want to download the offline installer instead, click the link below. Offline installer helps you install Windows Live Essentials on a computer with no internet connection and also serves as a backup of the package.

Download Windows Live Essentials 2011 OFFLINE INSTALLER / 156MB

[The above link is a redirect to the offline installer on Microsoft servers. So please treat it as time-sensitive link. Microsoft may remove the installer at any time.]

Not that I really care about this, but Microsoft did roll out the Live Hotmail Wave 4 afterall. It’s been a long wait for Hotmail fans but now they can ride the all new Hotmail. Here is a video showing the new features implemented in the new Hotmail. Currently I am checking out what’s in store for me and may be you should do the same ;)

Windows Live Essentials Beta [Build 15.3.2804.607] is now available for download. I downloaded the Beta only to find myself stuck with a weird problem with the uninstall of the previous version of Windows Live Essentials. I tried to uninstall the previous version but the ‘Uninstall Wizard’ failed to launch. The previous installation had messed up and the uninstall couldn’t initiate. Moreover, you can’t over-ride the previous version of Live Essentials with the new installer. It throws a message, something like, ‘The following programs are already installed’. Fortunately, after hours of searching on the internet, I found a way to completely uninstall and remove all traces of the previous ‘Windows Live Essentials’ installation. If you are facing a similar problem, the following steps might help:

1) First, download and install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.  This little kid removes traces of previous installation of any program installed on your computer.

2) Once installed, launch it by clicking → ‘All Programs’ → ‘Windows Install Clean Up’.

3) In the window that appears, select the entries that has the words ‘Windows Live’ in it. Click Remove.

4) Once done, restart your PC (IMPORTANT). Then run Windows Update, just in case an important update is required to be installed prior to fresh Windows Live Essentials installation.

5) Finally, install Windows Live Essentials. This time it should go well.

I’d say No. Yes, that was my answer when I first created a Hotmail account 10 years ago and it is the same now. It’s been around half a year since we are hearing about the Live Wave 4. There has been a lot of talk all around the internet and Microsoft did roll out some videos featuring the Wave 4 – the revamped Windows Live Essentials suite and Hotmail. But is it really worth the wait? Especially when we have better options already at our disposal?

To be very frank, when I first saw the official video of the Hotmail Wave 4 featurette, it urged me to at least check what’s in store for me. But all I have been seeing since months are the never ending screenshots of the Wave 4 on sites like LiveSino and random posts on Microsoft blogs about the upcoming features without getting the real taste of it. Now that the Hotmail Wave 4 is said to have been rolled out a couple of days ago, it’s pathetic to see no one (at least I don’t know of anyone) actually getting the update. Is it so hard for a giant like Microsoft to deal with any kind of difficulty whatsoever, to roll the update simultaneously for all users?

I have never been a ‘Live’ fan. The interface and the navigation of the whole ‘Live Services’ arena is very mediocre and that’s just me using a euphemism for downright horrible. Ah.. and not to mention the occasional requests from strangers to join your network. I hoped the Wave 4 update will be able to atleast rectify the glitches, let alone new features, but looking at the delay being caused just to slip out an update, I seriously doubt the level of efficiency of Microsoft.

What are your views about Live Hotmail Wave 4? Is it really worth the wait? Will it be efficient enough to compete with the security and swiftness of Gmail?

TheNextWeb Conference 2010 was held between April 27-29th in Amsterdam where companies from US and Europe gathered to discuss the future of the web. Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform was discussed in detail and many video demonstrations followed. Here we have a video demo of the Windows Live Messenger app for the iPhone showcased during the conference. Speaker Angus Logan discusses the features of the app.

YouTube video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGKsNdbPBhc

Windows XP users, (sigh), you reading this? Don’t you think it’s about time you must leave the sinking boat and upgrade to a bigger, nicer boat – Windows 7? Well, sooner or later you’ll have to because Microsoft is really have no pity left for XP users now.

First it was the official end-of-support for XP as per the product life cycle, followed by lesser and lesser automatic updates, then Microsoft announced that IE9 won’t support XP and now even Windows Live Wave 4 won’t have support for XP. We have speculated this last month when LiveSino reported that the system requirements of Live Wave 4 does not include XP.

While discussing the Windows Live Wave 4 on Windows Team Blog, the Corporate VP (Windows Live) Chris Jones mentioned in a comment,

Windows XP is nearly 10 years old and simply doesn’t provide the same level of platform support for graphics, and we recognized early in our work on Wave 4 that we could do much more in our software on a modern graphics platform.  As a result our new version of Essentials will require the new graphics platform and controls that are only available on Windows 7 or Windows Vista and therefore will only run on these platforms.

Even after reigning for 10 years, Windows XP’s market share hovered around 64% by March 2010 and so it’s really apparent that Microsoft takes some stringent actions to bring it down.

Microsoft was and is very clear in its product life-cycle theories and the company has always followed them quite strictly. Couple of years ago Microsoft declared to reduce (and eventually end) the support for the aging Windows XP. Then it started reducing the number of automatic & recommended updates and only provided crucial security patches to XP users. But XP had its own charm which didn’t really nudge as Microsoft expected.

I think Microsoft doesn’t really care about Windows XP’s market-share and this is quite evident by Microsoft’s decision to gradually strip down support for XP in its upcoming products. Of course, from Microsoft’s POV, such a step is utmost important to increase the popularity of its new and advanced operating system – Windows 7.

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft declared that IE9 won’t support Windows XP. Now, LiveSino reports that the system requirements of the upcoming ‘official’ beta version of Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 does not include Windows XP.

This means that the Wave 4 versions of the major applications like Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Photo Gallery, etc. won’t support Windows XP. Microsoft has finally learnt the fact that for an average end-user, it’s the applications that matter and not the operating system. As long as their PC runs a particular application, an average user doesn’t really care to undergo an OS upgrade or worst, even bother to know what OS they use. Microsoft’s game is pretty simple – ‘You take away what they need and they’ll do whatever you want’.

Now please don’t take it as a bashing on Microsoft. Apart from panning end users’ attention to Windows Vista or 7, the major reason to abandon Windows XP lies in the fact that XP is a decade old product; incapable to support certain advanced technologies and thereby the applications built on them. However, it’s 2010 and it’s still a fat chance to bring down XP’s popularity in at least 3 years from now. And Microsoft sure knows it very well. Nevertheless, we are surely witnessing the beginning of the end of an era – Windows XP’s era. 

Facebook’s been one of the best platform for sharing photos and videos online. And I know how everytime you get so excited to publish pictures on Facebook from your recent trip. Although uploading photos on Facebook is no rocket science, but we never mind to simplify an already simple process. How about uploading your pictures to your Facebook account directly from Windows Live Gallery while you continue browsing them in your computer? Sounds great right.

‘LiveUpload to Facebook’ is a small plug-in for Windows Live Photo Gallery that does this awesome job for you. Download and install the software and start uploading your pictures to Facebook directly from Windows Live Gallery.

Once installed, you just have to browse through your pictures in Windows Live Photo Gallery and click Publish > More Services > LiveUpload to Facebook.

Features:

» LiveUpload to Facebook not only uploads your photos and videos to Facebook, it also preserves any people tags added in Windows Live Photo Gallery. 

» Further, you can organize and tag your photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery itself before uploading.

» You can upload your pictures to an existing album or create a new one.

Download LiveUpload to Facebook / 2.75 MB

I must make it clear that this little tip is for beginner’s only. You must have experienced that many of your contacts have multiple email accounts and its quite irritating to see your address book filled with multiple entries of the same person. The reason is, Windows Live Hotmail treats every email address as a unique contact and this makes your address book unorganized and cumbersome to use. However, Windows Live Hotmail offers a feature to counteract this issue.

Here’s how you can either merge multiple email IDs of the same contact or delete all but one of their email IDs:

1) In your Windows Live Hotmail account, click ‘Options’ > ‘More options’.

2) Now, under the ‘Customize your contacts’ category, click ‘Clean up duplicate contacts’.

3) Then click the ‘Clean up duplicate contacts’ button and select a contact from the list.

4) Now you can either select all but one contact details and delete the rest or you can select all and merge them.

There you are. You just made your address book much more clean and well-organized.

Sometime ago I showed a simple trick how you can minimize Windows Live Messenger to system tray in Windows 7. Based on the similar trick, I am going show you how you can set Windows Live Mail to always minimize to tray.

1) Right-click on the Windows Live Mail icon and then click ‘Properties’.

2) In the ‘Windows Live Mail Properties’ window, click the ‘Compatibility’ tab. Here, set the ‘Compatibility mode’ to Windows Vista. Click OK.

3) Run Windows Live Mail and you will see its icon in the notification area (system tray). Right-click its icon and choose ‘Hide window when minimized’.

Now whenever you minimize the Windows Live Mail window, it won’t appear in the super bar and you can make it appear again by double-clicking its icon in the system tray.

Liked this small tut? Grab feeds to get more such quick tutorials.