Windows Live never really was considered the best idea Microsoft has ever had. Couple a deluge of similarly named services with the fact that MSN was making money while Windows Live wasn’t, and you’ve got a great recipe for people to say, “wtf lol?” or, alternatively, “f u M$.” As the months have passed, one thing has become clear: Windows Live is a serious effort to compete with Google. Most of the web services went final earlier this year, including Hotmail, Spaces, Search, Maps, and Home. Now, a second wave of products has left beta, this time targeting Microsoft’s biggest asset: desktop software.

It’s Called Windows Live, not Windows Live. Duh!

I’ve been at somewhat of a loss to figure out just what exactly what to call the thing. Apparently, it’s called Windows Live, as though it’s a separate entity from the other Windows Live (the big one, remember? The one that was here first.) The download button at www.windowslive.com even says “Get Windows Live.” So, I’ll be calling this Windows Live. Sometimes I may say Windows Live, and in those few cases, I mean the project as a whole. Clear as mud? Excellent.

Unified Installer

Microsoft wants you to use all of the Live suite apps. They want you to use them so much that they’ve created one installer for all of them. The “unified installer” as it’s been called, is actually a downloader that goes out and gets the actual applications once you’ve picked which ones you want to install. It installs them all automatically and even offers links to open installed ones while the rest finish up. The install certainly isn’t very snappy, taking its sweet time from start to finish, even excluding the fact that it has to download the apps from the internet. The result from the unified installer is still a net time savings over downloading and running each installer individually, but it sure doesn’t feel like it when you’re waiting for it to get a move on.

Windows Live Sign-In Assistant

The Sign-In Assistant isn’t really an application, more of a minor enhancement. It simply makes the Windows Live sign in page a little more ajax-ish-y, I guess.

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger was the first desktop application to get the Windows Live designation, and the application in the suite that’s been around the longest, as well as the only application to have ads in the interface. Previously known as MSN Messenger, WLM allows people to communicate on both Microsoft’s and Yahoo!’s protocols, with users of either IM application. WLM’s chats are very capable, with features like video chat, audio chat, screen sharing, and whiteboard. Filesharing is accomplished through a feature called Sharing Folders, where files a placed in a folder that is then synced with a given buddy, rather than sending the file directly. Overall, as is the case with most IM networks, the client developed for the protocol has the best support, but doesn’t offer much in the way of support for other protocols, so those who have a substantial amount of contacts on another network will want to pass for something that can handle both at the same time. WLM is, however, a very compelling reason to use the Live network if you have all of your contacts on it or Yahoo.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is probably the newest application of the suite, having been written from scratch for Windows Live. A rich-text blog post editor, WLW supports uploading to services like Blogger, WordPress, and Windows Live Spaces, as well as to other blogs through the MetaWeblog API.

When you first add an account, the system will download some style information that, in most cases, allows you to edit your posts and see them exactly as they appear. You can also use the “Web Preview” feature to see just exactly how your entry will look on the page of your blog. If for some reason the style information isn’t working correctly, you can also edit your posts in the normal black-on-white mode just wait until you publish to see how it looks. WLW can detect what tags the blog system has set up and allows you to tag your post accordingly. You can also choose your publish date. Drafts can be saved either locally or to the remote server.

Of course, being able to post to every weblog type ever created doesn’t do much good without a decent text editor to make the posts, and Writer delivers on that front, as well. In addition to standard rich text features, Writer can insert images with different borders, including inheriting the inline image style from the weblog it’s posting to. Maps from Live Search Maps can be added, which place an image that, when clicked, navigates to the same location in the map search. Videos can be embedded from any site which gives embed code, with an interface to find videos from your MSN Soapbox account (either ones uploaded by you or just your favorites.) Videos cannot be directly uploaded from your computer for obvious reasons.

WLW is an impressive effort for a version 1.0 product.  It only has a few bugs, like when the cursor doesn’t respond right away when deleting text, and a little UI weirdness. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well with DT, so I’m not able to use it to write my posts. It’s certainly one of the nicest products in the suite, however.

Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Mail changed rapidly over the course of its development. Originally, the name Windows Live Mail was given to Microsoft’s replacement for Hotmail, with the client being called Windows Live Mail Desktop. Right around the time that Windows Live Mail was renamed to Windows Live Hotmail to keep the name everyone knew, WLMD had received a very large overhaul. With the new name available, WLMD dropped the Desktop from its name. The application itself is billed as a replacement for Windows Mail or Outlook Express, the email clients bundled with Windows Vista and XP respectively. I’d say it does a little more than replace them, however. WLM will do mail, RSS, and newsgroups.

For the mail portion, WLM supports both POP and IMAP accounts, as well as their own HTTP protocol, used for Hotmail accounts. SMTP is the only available protocol for sending. WLM supports rich text, attachments, and pretty much everything standard with email clients these days. It has both a junk and a phishing filter for keeping unwanted and/or malicious emails out of the inbox. The RSS reader is essentially standard fare, with one standout feature. It uses the Windows RSS Platform, meaning that not only are subscribed feeds synced between it and other apps that make use of it (including Internet Explorer 7,) but other information such as read status of individual articles are synced as well. This is neat, but somehow I think it would be so much better if there were a Windows Live Feeds service that it could sync to and from (HINT HINT.) As for the newsreader, it’s a newsreader. Comes with all the Microsoft support newsgroups built in, I guess it beats using their web interface if you have a question.

Additionally, WLM includes a contacts manager that, while it can import your existing contacts from the Windows Address Book, WLM contacts is separate, so you can’t really go back and forth. Seems somewhat out of place when everything else seems to sync rather than replace.

Windows Live Toolbar

Windows Live Toolbar is just exactly what it sounds like: a toolbar with quick access to all Live and MSN services, including a search box, Hotmail unread count, and direct adding of favorites to Windows Live Favorites. As with most toolbars of this sort, users of most Live services may find quick access to them indispensable, but those who use only a few will most likely find the toolbar to consume more space than its usefulness merits.

Windows Live Photo Gallery

In contrast to Windows Live Writer, Photo Gallery is essentially a “Livening” of a very similar product with a very similar name already shipping with all copies of Windows Vista. Windows Live Photo Gallery essentially allows publishing of photos to your Live Space while turning the toolbar blue. That’s it, if you’re a Windows Vista user. Windows XP users, however, don’t have access to regular Photo Gallery, so this marks the 62nd time that Microsoft has backported advertized features to an older OS, give or take.

Because both photo galleries use the existing folder structure and metadata features of Explorer, Windows Live Photo Gallery should pick up right where WPG left off.  Pictures can be viewed by tag, by date (and time, to an amazing degree of granularity,) and the folder structure. Several basic touch-up features are available, as well. As far as the photo upload feature goes, WLPG should draw in a few more users than it would normally attract if it could only publish to Windows Live Spaces. It is also capable of publishing to Flickr. Videos can be published to MSN Soapbox. Of course, Microsoft’s main competitor is clear here, as no Google services, as popular as they may be, are available.

Windows Live Family Safety

You know how I said I was going to cover this? Well, I’m not. It seems that only adults can sign in to configure it, though they didn’t exactly specify what constituted as an adult (this is all tied to the Windows Live account.) Oh well, I guess you can just read up on it at the official website if you really want to.

Additional Remarks

Many of the applications display a preliminary level of integration. Examples include many occurrences of a “Blog This” button which will send content to Writer, an “E-Mail” button that will insert selected photos in a new message in Mail, and the ability to initiate Live Messenger conversations from contacts in Live Contacts. Many bases are indeed covered, but unfortunately aren’t obvious in the user interface. There are some inconsistencies, mostly with the toolbar using the web interfaces for many of its “Send To” features, but it’s a decent level on the whole.

One aspect I do have to commend Live Suite on, however, is the relative consistency of the user interface between the applications, both in look and feel. Most of the applications have dropped the conventional menubar, instead utilizing a toolbar with more drop down menus than usual. Many also offer a color selector for the toolbars so they will blend better with the current color of Aero glass. There are a few inconsistencies with the color picker, where some applications like Photo Gallery don’t have it at all, some have an option to automatically change the color to match the glass tint, and some hit middle ground between the two. Additionally, there are some other minor inconsistencies that aren’t justified by the application’s needs, and while it can sometimes be annoying, it certainly isn’t catastrophic to a workflow.

Conclusion

Thought the competition between Microsoft and Google won’t be ending for some time, it’s clear that Microsoft knows that keeping the desktop around is key to their success. To that end, they have produced what amounts to a fairly decent set of apps that mesh well with the online Live services, picking up where they leave off for the most part. Where desktop computing will go in the future is uncertain, but most major web corps will be damned if they don’t try to change it as much as possible in their favor. The apps themselves, while by no means perfect, are certainly worth a look for not only users of Microsoft’s services, but people looking for decent desktop apps to tie into their online services won’t be disappointed either, as the apps are by no means locked down to Microsoft’s interests.

My personal recommendations are Mail and Writer.