I would like to wish Happy Holidays and a Happy/Prosperous 2009 when it comes to all readers of Teching it Easy.

Andre

Windows Live is not just a consumer product, there are some business functionality built into the suite too. In addition to the Office Outlook connector for managing Live Hotmail email in the Office Personal Information Manager, the Office Live WorkPlace add-in allows you to save your Microsoft Office files directly to your own online work space at Office Live.

Save to Office Live Option in Office 2007

Installing the Office Live Save Add-in

Setup

The Windows Live Suite does not include the add-in itself, that you will have to download. The ‘Save to Office Live’ pane features a sign in link which triggers the installation of the ad-in from Microsoft Downloads. Once you have downloaded and installed the ad-in, a restart is required. Once you have done so, the Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint Office Fluent file menu includes a new Save As and Open As capability for Office Live. Hopefully by the next release or even before then, Microsoft will support the add in across the entire suite of products.

Log in prompt for Office Live Workspace

Once you have successfully installed the Ad-in, the next step is to sign into the service. Existing users of Office Live Workplace will get automatic access to their workspace, for first time users, you will need to signup and configure the service first. Lets take a look at that.

The Office Live Wizard gets you up and running in a few minutes.

After clicking continue in the Office Live Workspace wizard, your web browser is launched automatically which takes you to the Office Live web page where you must first accept the Service Agreement before continuing. 

Setup and Signing into Office Live Workspace (click to enlarge)

Once you have setup and configured your Office Live Workspace, you are ready to start saving and opening Microsoft Office files from the web. With your workspace, you can store 1000+ documents online, share them with others, and then access them directly from Microsoft Office Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Saving to the workspace is very similar to working in Windows Explorer. The Office Live ‘Save As’ window works more like a Mapped Network drive. Initially, I got an error message trying to save, but after closing out the window and trying again it worked successfully.

Save Progress

Document saved to your Office Live Workspace

Once your document is up on Office Live Workspace, users have the option of sharing files, viewing the document as a web page. Unfortunately, I was not presented the option of doing so in the browser. Office Live instead insisted that I download the file and edit locally. So there are some issues still to be worked out where that is the concerned. Microsoft is promising that the next version of Microsoft Office ‘14’ will support editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in the web browser. Users can still appreciate the basic collaboration functionality built in such as versioning of files, commenting and the ability to share files in work spaces with multiple users.

I would like to see federation across Windows Live storage services, such as the option to have files uploaded, replicated and saved in your Windows Live Skydrive too. Having data scattered across different but similar services seems like too much manage. Overall, I appreciate the ability to work with my Office files in new and innovative ways.

I had a bit of issues earlier today installing Windows Live Essentials Refresh BETA. But I managed to get around it with the help of a few friends and some trial and error. Some things to take into account, I am running the suite on Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit build 6801. It seems the suite has some kinks to work out where 64 bit is concerned since it failed miserably trying to install on Windows 7 64 bit. Some users are noting issues on Windows Vista 64 bit so this is specific to the OS being beta software. The suite is noted in the system requirements as supporting Windows XP SP2 (no 64-bit support for XP Professional x64 Edition), but Vista is supported in general, no specifics on platform mentioned.

Windows Live Essentials BETA Refresh installed on Windows 7 32-bit build 6801

I wanted to show some of the nice visuals I have seen since installing the update. Windows Live Messenger 9 which has been Released To Web (RTW means its final), has a cleaner updated sign in screen. The IM client includes additional themes, some I don’t find so interesting. By default, you asked to join the IM initiative, I will be doing this now. :)

Windows ‘i’m’ initiative which donates a proceeds to worthy charities to help persons less fortunate.

New sign in screen and themes in Windows Live Messenger 9 (RTW)

Other noticeable changes in the main interface, include the addition of the more visible ‘Open your e-mail inbox’ icon and slick notification toast. The Windows Live Essentials suite also features some beautiful branded icons, the scaling on Live Call and Movie Maker have not been updated, but Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery and Writer have been updated.

Friendly Windows Live Essentials branded icons.

I will be taking a closer look at the suite over the next few days, stay tuned. :)

Hey folks,

I am throwing a question out to the community. How can I get the full Windows Live Essentials BETA Refresh installer instead of the web installer? I have multiple PC's I would to install the suite on, but because I am on a slow connection, doing so would take a long time. Downloading the suite on a 1 MB connection is painful enough already.

The first Windows Live Essentials beta supported downloading of the entire suite, I was hoping this would continue as an optional trend.

Thanks
Andre

Update: My good friend Nicholas Rayner gave me the answer:

If you're after the full installer head to download.live.com, click download and when the download box appears, click cancel then on the page click Try Again. This worked for me yesterday :)

Thanks a million Nick! :)

Brandon Leblanc over at the Windows Experience blog announced the availability of the Windows Live Essentials Suite BETA Refresh.

Quote: “Today, we’ve released a refresh of the Windows Live Essentials Betas. You can download the updated suite at download.live.com. The Windows Live Essentials consist of Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Toolbar, and Family Safety.”

Read article here

As you know, I have been doing a series of articles on the new suite which not only contain applications, but rich services that allow you to share your photos, extend your personal identity and socialize in a powerful way with family and friends.

Resources:

Instant and Social Communication with Windows Live Messenger 9
Managing and Sharing Digital Memories using Windows Live Photo Gallery 2009

I have been running the Windows 7 Pre-BETA for sometime now and I have been using Windows Vista since the first BETA. One thing that has bothered me and it looks like it will be carried over into Windows 7 is the appearance of the Windows Aero Basic theme. The Windows Team created it for less graphically powerful systems that could not handle Aero Glass which features a semi-transparent UI with cool animation effects. Right now I have been restricted to Aero Basic on 2 systems running the Windows 7 Pre-BETA because the video card driver is either not WDDM 1.1 compatible or its buggy. What I find strange is how certain applications support elements found in the Aero Glass theme on in Vista Aero Basic, but don’t make it full application across all user interface in the OS. Take for instance, Windows Live Messenger:

Here you will see the normal Aero Glass integrated Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons. But When you change to an explorer window or another application on Windows, its those ugly buttons, see below:

Personally, just don’t like the look of the buttons, they just stand out and look like a sore thumb. Aero Basic itself could do with some well needed improvements, like the ability to change the color of the garish bluish scheme that is not compelling. But, I just don’t see what was so hard or wrong to add the same Min, Max, Close buttons to Aero Basic that I see available to Windows Live Messenger. The only drawback with the Aero Glass style buttons in Basic is the lack of the glowing effect which I don’t miss.

Now doesn’t that look better?

It actually gives the theme a bit of self respect and personality. Now, if I could at least get an option to tone down the garish blue, I think a lot users wouldn’t feel so let down when they get a laptop that can’t handle all the rich graphical goodness of Aero Glass. Its one of the things I liked about Windows XP, no matter the system, everybody had the same full experience with theming not matter the type of GPU options available to them.

Been searching around the web for information about Microsoft’s next version of Office, currently code named ‘Office 14’. Didn’t find much apart from what was demoed at PDC 2008 back in October. Some people are wondering, what’s new to the suite except for the addition of a webified version and OneNote 14 getting the Office Fluent (Ribbon) UI?

I stumbled across a Flickr photo stream with some shots taken by member gholzer, in one of the screenshots of Word 14 and even the new OneNote with Office Fluent UI, the Office Team has made some small changes to certain parts of the UI. I noticed that the Office Button or File Menu has been made more subtle with an integrated perspective instead of the tack on appearance in version 2007. Lets take a look:

Microsoft Office 14 Fluent application with a more subtle File menu - (image gholzer)

The Office button or File menu in Word 2007

There seems to be some streamlining between applications in Windows 7 and the Office 14 suite. Programs such as Word Pad and Paint that take advantage of the new UI also feature that subtle appearance of the File menu.

Word Pad and Paint in Windows 7

How major a release will Office 14 be? This is anybody’s guess, Office 2007 is major as it is already and a lot of people love it based on their experiences. But, is there anymore that Microsoft can do to a suite that has seen such a drastic update?

Mary Jo Foley of All About Microsoft talks about Microsoft discontinuation of Digital Locker, Vista’s built in storage management solution for software titles and product licensing bought through Windows Marketplace.

Quote : Microsoft has sent a note on December 11 to registered Marketplace customers alerting them of its plans to discontinue Digital Locker. From the note:

Dear Digital Locker Customer,

This is to notify you that on November 20, 2008 Windows® Marketplace  transitioned from an e-commerce site to a reference site. On Windows Marketplace you will find links to sites such as Microsoft Store, Windows Vista® Compatibility Center, and other destinations with compatible software, hardware and devices that support Microsoft platforms.  As part of this transition, the digital locker service affiliated with Windows Marketplace will be closed in August, 2009.

Read the entire post here

I personally have never used the service, but it seemed like a good idea. I don’t know if Microsoft is working on anything better. But the link to Digital Locker usually found under the Task Pane in Programs and Feature in Vista is not available in Windows 7, so it looks like this decision was made a long time ago.

Resources:

Windows Marketplace Frequently Asked Questions page.

I have noticed this for a good while now, but sort of ignored it since I also get weather updates through my Windows Live Weather Gadget on my Windows Live Space and through Yahoo! Mail box Home page. But what is bothering me is the non-functioning weather Gadget included in both Vista and 7. At first I thought it had become corrupted, so I tried it in another account, same results. I have come to find out that my Vista system is not the only one affected, it happens on my family and friends systems running Vista. The error message I keep getting is ‘Service is not available in your region.

No support for local towns and cities anymore?

What's interesting is, when I enter locations that I am sure would be available such as ‘Redmond, WA’, I get the ‘cannot connect to service’ error too. The weather applet on Windows Live Home page works just fine and I am sure the data is coming from the same source: Foreca. I wish services like this could be more federated, I am signed into my Live Space with the same account as my Live Home Page. I hope Gadgets are more synergistic in Windows 7 where information delivered to user is relevant to their region.

The Weather Applet on my Windows Live Home Page and the Live Gadget on my Live Space.

Another issue I am experiencing is the Windows Live Weather Gadget. Prior to the recent Windows Live Spaces update, it worked just fine for my region ‘Mandeville, JAM’, now it only defaults to ‘Seattle, WA’. I have modified settings, at first it added my parish as a second weather gadget. Since I don’t live in Seattle or have any need to see the weather forecast for that region, I close it out and and click ‘Save’. When I am taken back to my home page it defaults back to ‘Seattle, WA’. What gives? I have tried adding my area as a second Gadget, but it ends up only displaying ‘’Seattle, WA’. 

I have been on an extensive preview of improvements to Windows 7 and major services Microsoft is planning to release to customers for free through its Windows Live wave 3 suite. Our first preview looked at Windows Live Messenger 9 which includes major improvements to social networking and personal identity, you can check that out here. Now we have come to one of the core experience tools in the Live suite, Photo Gallery, which is a combination of digital asset management if you like, photo and video viewer, light weight image editor and a key to sharing your digital memories with family and friends. Windows Live Photo Gallery was initially released as Windows Photo Gallery with the release of Windows Vista in January 2007 succeeding Microsoft's Digital Image Pro software. It was a great addition to Windows that has seen one major update since, the Windows Live Photo Gallery 2008 release which added major integration and online publishing features with Windows Live and third party online services such as Flickr. Photo Gallery has always included third party support through online photo services for printing your images, but with a lot of value and popularity through social sites such as Facebook and Flickr, sharing your memories is exceptionally easier and more fun to use.

Installing Windows Live Photo Gallery 2009 (click to enlarge)

Setup
Live Photo Gallery is installed as a part of the Windows Live Wave 3 suite. You will find Windows Live Photo Gallery located under the Windows Live suite folder in All Programs. Opening the Program for the firs time, a dialog will appear asking for permission to support or import different image file formats. Live Photo Gallery supports a range of image formats, such as .JPEG, .PNG, .GIF, Bitmap, and .TIFF. Images added to your Picture explorers such as Personal or Public Picture folders are automatically populated in Photo Gallery. If you have images stored in another location you can easily add them by going File > 'Include a folder in the gallery...' and navigate to wherever it is located on your hard drive. Microsoft has made some changes to the menu structure, Live Photo Gallery adopts a iconless menu bar which is also a change to Windows 7's Explorer shells. The interface has seen some renovations in key areas, the Photo Gallery controls located at the bottom of the window for quickly viewing a slide show and navigating through your photo library have been reduced to a set of conservative status buttons. Slide show has been cut down a bit though in functionality, previous versions of Photo Gallery displayed collages which is missing in this release. Its something I liked and was even expecting it would be be improved with additional functionality and integration with even the slide show feature in Windows Live Spaces Photo Galleries.  I like the change and makes the interface feel less cumbersome. I understand that Microsoft was trying to create consistency across applications in Windows Vista, but it does not apply to every scenario it seems. This move gives users more real estate to view your photos with no loss in functionality. The interface is much cleaner with less frames and elegant separators with drop shadows.

Windows Photo Gallery UI changes, Vista release (top) and Live Photo Gallery 2008

Windows Photo Gallery 2009’s new iconless menus

The new conservative Library Controls, old version (below)

New Menus and Options
Going back to the menu bar area, Live Photo Gallery has added and rearranged some of its options over the past couple of releases. Open has now been replaced by Extras with familiar links to further edit and view your images in default programs such as Microsoft Word (you would be surprised how many image editing options there are in Word 2007), and now Windows Media Center directly from Photo Gallery. Slideshow, once a player control, is now a part of the menu structure. The library controls themselves have been consolidated into status bar buttons which are actually more pleasing, in fact, the 'Zoom in or out' slider is more accessible instead of having to click in previous versions to invoke the function. The sorting area has been significantly cleaned up, columns such as 'Name, Date, Rating etc..' have been consolidated into 'Arrange by auto' menu with additional filters such as Tag and Person (the tagging gallery is now off by default). The Rating feature displays a 5 star options with filtering tools for displaying a specific set based on your personal rating. The fundamentals of Photo Gallery remains the same, and users should feel right at home upgrading to this release.

People Tagging Features (click to enlarge)

Meta Data Features
A core part of managing your digital library, meta data gives the user detailed information about a particular photo or video. This area of the Photo Gallery interface, has not changed significantly in version 2009, but adds new options for users that are sure to impress. The expandable hierarchical view of folders, tags and calendar dates are more subtle with the expandable indicators only appearing when your mouse pointer is hovered within the area. The latest feature that has been added is People tags. The basic idea is to have human recognition in your photos. Its a tradition to take group photos, whether its a couple, family or friends. Its similar to features found on social networking sites such as Facebook or Flickr which allow you to tag people or objects in a photo which either links you to more information about the person or item. People Tags is quite impressive, when you click on a photo with multiple persons in it, the image is immediately identified as having persons found. What is also impressive is the software's ability to identify a face in a photo. If you hover over the Person found buttons in the Tag Gallery a square is automatically generated over a persons face. The level of accuracy is quite amazing. Of course, you can create your own identities if Photo Gallery 2009 does not discover an individual in a photo automatically. If you are not signed in, when the 'That's Me' tag is selected, a Windows Live ID dialog prompt appears asking you to sign in to access services such as Windows Live Spaces and MSN Soap Box. You also get richer tagging capabilities, persons in your Photo's you know can be linked to your Windows Live Contacts (this kind of remind of when Smart Tags were first introduced in Office XP). Powerful stuff, definitely love it.

Beyond photos, users can now publish videos to MSN soapbox, you can download a free plug in Uploader for YouTube by William Duff. An issue I discovered about videos in Photo Gallery 2009, when you are previewing them, there is no support for real time seeking. Videos also depend on GPU acceleration. I am currently running the software on Windows 7, but my nVidia Geforce is not supported yet, so when previewing video, there is constant stuttering. This is not the case on other systems of course where your hardware is properly setup. Other issues I discovered include preview of photos and videos being in half.

A small glitch when previewing photos and videos.

Two new editing effects: Straighten and Black and White (click to enlarge)

Editing Photos
Photo Gallery includes some new features for basic photo editing. These include, Black and white effects such as Orange, Sepia, Yellow, Red and Cyan. The No Filter option seems to be buggy right now since it does not turn off the filter effect when the option is selected, I had to CTRL + Z or undo out until the original colors re-appeared. Photo Gallery does give you the ability to revert back to an original though, even after a photo has been edited and saved, this based on Vista’s Previous Versions shadow copy feature. I am not sure if this is available to Windows XP users. These are basic Photoshop functionality users who are familiar with the program will find in Photo Gallery 2009 and they are free! The 'Straighten photo' is also new and just as the name says aligns your image using a gridline while you simply use the slider to control the accuracy. Don't look at the slider, the gridline is the key to ensuring that the photo appears straight based on your personal satisfaction. A new Photo-stitching feature lets you easily build panoramic views from a collection of photos. The panorama must be based on an actual scene, you can't just use a bunch of unrelated photos. The other areas such as Auto adjust, exposure, color, detail, cropping and red eye have remain unchanged.

Print dialog, circa Windows Live Photo Gallery 2007

In addition to its strong support for photo-sharing services, you can order prints directly from over 70,000 worldwide printer services partners. The printing dialog looks a bit out of place in this release, especially on 7, hopefully that gets updated before the final release.

Integration Across Windows Live and Services
Photo Gallery 2009 focuses on making it easy to share your images with the help of services in the Windows Live Suite. Emailing photos is just a click away, I selected 3 images from my library and immediately a Windows Live Mail window popped up. The 'Attach files' dialog is now handled by Live Mail, such as resolution and size, images sent can be reduced to 512 K or the highest 5 MB for best quality. You can add photo effects such as a frame, color border and even choose how your photos are presented to the recipient in different layouts.

Email Options for Photos (click to enlarge)

Publishing your photos has been a feature of Photo Gallery since the 2008 release, with support for Flickr and Windows Live Spaces. Users can obtain additional plug ins for services such as Facebook and YouTube, I hope these come by default with the final version, it just seems like the right out of the box experience thing to do. The two upload plug ins for YouTube can download here and Facebook here  were created by William Duff, for users of Google Picasa, you can find that here by Mark Steeves. So, Photo Gallery provides a very open platform that enables third party developers to further enhance the program beyond what the Windows Live Team delivers. Images published directly to your Live Space are now directly stored on your Windows Live Skydrive. The Windows Live Team has also promised to continue to updating the program regularly so no more tying releases to Windows OS schedules which means, expect innovative updates.

Uploading Photos and setting permissions (click to enlarge)

With the recent roll out of the new Windows Live Home (http://home.live.com) which focuses on improved social networking, sharing your photos is even easier. A feature called 'Home Page Photos' displays a collection of photos you have uploaded from your hard drive. There could have been better integration across the online services, by simply linking to existing galleries of photos that have already been published from Photo Gallery to your Live Space and have them streamed on the users Windows Live Home Page.

The end result.

The upload process is very easy though, simply browse for the photos you would like to add using the browse fields or install the 'Upload Photos Add' which provides drag drop ease for uploading multiple photos at the same time. Once your photos are uploaded, you can set permissions to share with your friends, since the default is just you, add more photos, create a folder or view a slide show and even order prints. Permissions themselves is federated across your Contact list or your Social Network. For instance, I have my Windows Live Messenger list setup in different categories, they show up as groups within the category of permission with Public being everyone that visits your Windows Live Home page and Networks being those within your social group. You have the option of setting options for users such adding photos, editing details or even deleting. If you have friends that are not in your contact list, you can adding them by simply entering their email address and click Save. Photos are displayed in a neat little animated slideshow.

Conclusion
Windows Live Photo Gallery is more than the photo manager we have come know since its inception as one of the multimedia features of Vista. It has evolved over the years into a mature product that integrates tightly with the web through innovative services such as the new Windows Live Home and Windows Live Essentials suite. Its support for add-ons will further enhance the products qualities and give users unique and cool ways of sharing their digital memories. Its a complete end to end experience, its not smooth in some areas, but its off to a definitely great start.

Previously:

A Look at Windows Backup and Windows Update in 7
Instant and Social Communication with Windows Live Messenger 9
Playing with Windows Media Player 12

The Windows Team has been continuing to work towards the first BETA release of Windows 7. PDC 2008 previewed some of improvements to the desktops, but Microsoft is not stopping there for this release. The website CNBeta has a video of the latest build 6956 shown at WinHEC 2008 in China, and a new Boot screen animation is now a part of the boot sequence. Check it out:

The Boot animation features 3 glowing blurs combining to form glowing logo. Kinda hard to describe to be honest. :P

Windows Vista currently has a boot screen animation, but its quite conservative with just a simple glowing effect. A lot of folks on enthusiast websites such as NeoWin.net have been discussing this particularly non-interesting part of Windows to most average users. Its one thing for sure, Microsoft is making a major UI overhaul of the Windows interface and its in the details. Its also said that Microsoft will be allowing OEM’s to edit the boot sequence. I remember reading an article on Paul Thurrott’s WinSupersite indicating the reason for Vista’s conservative boot sequence was to actually improve and shorten the boot time. Removing the graphical distractions actually shaved 12 seconds off the boot up time. I have been running Windows 7 6801 exclusively since last months PDC 2008 and even in this build the boot sequence looks sexy. Definitely looking forward to testing this update. I just hope they have device drivers ready for my Geforce FX 6200 512 MB AGP. :)

Microsoft started rolling out the red carpet for its new Windows Live Wave 3 products and services. Today I started getting invitations from friends to join their Network. But I have been plagued with the following bug:

Not a good start…for me.

The new http://home.live.com features a lot of social feature which is heavily emphasized by most of the services in this release. Its very similar to Facebooks user page where you see a aggregated list of fellow friend activity in your social network. Some of the nice features include Status, Personal Messages, some of the typical things you will find on Facebook. The nice thing is that there is a deep level of integration across Windows Live, for instance, your Windows Live Messenger 9 status and Personal Message is federated across services. Windows Live Spaces plays a critical role by providing a more healthy way of expressing yourself than the junk that tends to build up on other Social Networks over time. Seeing a blog post from a friend is better than the web apps and invitations that have taken over Facebook and its a lot cleaner and more attractive the eye. If you are moving from Facebook or plan on using Live Home, you will find other features such as events with available options for ignoring request and invitations. So a lot of the fundamentals have been worked out.

Performance remains an issue and stability is a concern. Right now, I am trying to join a couple friends network and I cannot because of this ‘error retrieving the content message’. Today I got a invitation from a new friend on Facebook, I clicked confirm and I was friends. This fiasco on Live, I have been clicking Save for approximately 30 minutes. I closed it out earlier, clicked back in the invitation again I received in my inbox and its still the same thing.

Invitations

Update:

Well, while typing this message, it finally confirmed the invitation. I guess all it took was a rant – LOL!

Invitations once accepted can be categorized in existing categories on your Windows Live Messenger contact list or your can add a new Category.

Overall, I like it, I think its better in the respect that its much cleaner thank Facebook. It provides useful tools that users who want to socialize will appreciate. The centralized management between your Live Space, your network of friends, messages and events make it more streamlined and productive. The issue is, will it catch on? The application craze on Facebook is no doubt a success and a lot of people are addicted to it, its hard to see them coming off that binge for this. Personally, I don’t want to see Windows Live Home turn out the same way. So, I will say its a good start, initially I have experienced some bugs as I write this post, but things are coming together and I am seeing why its a great platform. The fact that a Windows Live ID can provide access to so much in a well coordinated way, whether its communicating with contacts, sharing photos or delivering a message will be hit with folks who want a suite of interconnected experiences Windows Live provides.

Stay tuned for a more formal review soon.

Here is your chance as a developer to test Microsoft’s next version of Windows!

Quote:

Breaking news!!!

Attend an upcoming MSDN Developer Conference and you will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD.

Register today and you’ll get the best of the PDC in your own backyard and hear all of the exciting announcements around the Azure Services Platform and Windows 7.

1. Experience Windows Azure
   Create applications that seamlessly bridge the gaps between PC, Web, and phone
2. Be among the first to see Windows 7
   See the latest advances in Multi-Touch Application Development
3. Take your .NET skills to the next level
   See sessions on WPF 4.0, Silverlight 2, The Future of C# and VB, ASP.NET 4.0, Live Mesh and more

The Cost? Just $99.
And, did we mention that attendees will get some cool giveaways?

Learn more here