Windows Essentials (formerly Windows Live Essentials and Windows Live Installer) is a discontinued suite of
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...
applications that includes
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
,
photo sharing,
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
ging, and
parental control software. ''Essentials'' programs are designed to integrate well with each other, with
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, and other Microsoft
web-based
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
services such as
OneDrive and
Outlook.com
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
.
Applications
Windows Essentials 2012 includes the following applications:
*
Photo Gallery
*
Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...
*
Mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
*
Writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
*
OneDrive (later integrated into
Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
or
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
)
*
Family Safety (Windows 7 only)
*
Messenger
''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geoche ...
Windows Essentials applications support installation on
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
,
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
,
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
,
Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
,
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became General av ...
,
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succe ...
and
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 8.1" or "Windows Server Blue", is the seventh version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was unveiled on June 3, 2013 a ...
.
Previous versions were also available on
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
and
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
, and included
Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...
.
History
Windows Live Dashboard
On August 25, 2006, Microsoft began seeking testers for their invitation-only Windows Live service named ''Windows Live Essentials''. It was very similar to
Google Pack
Google Pack was a collection of software tools offered by Google to download in a single archive. It was announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, on January 6. Google Pack was only available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
I ...
in that it allows users to discover, install, and maintain a number of Windows Live application programs. However, the original ''Windows Live Essentials'' was referred to as the website serving the purpose of allowing users to discover new Windows Live services. The ''Windows Live Essentials'' website was integrated tightly with ''Windows Live Dashboard'', an application which offers a view of the services the user already has and what new Windows Live software and services are available. Windows Live Dashboard required users to sign-in with their
Windows Live ID
A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on on ...
to check whether the service has been downloaded or not. At that time, web-based services such as Windows Live Hotmail (then ''Windows Live Mail'') was also part of the list.
Shortly after its initial
beta
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...
release, the original ''Windows Live Essentials'' website became unavailable and the website was redirected to ''Windows Live Betas'' (then ''Windows Live Ideas''), and as a result ''Windows Live Dashboard'' also became unavailable.
Windows Live Installer (Wave 2)
Subsequent reappearance of a ''Windows Live Dashboard'' is seen with the initial "Windows Live Wave 2" unified installers from
Windows Live Messenger 8.5,
Mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
and
Writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
that was released on May 30, 2007. In the "Windows Live Wave 2" suite of services, ''Windows Live Installer'' was the name of the website and software given to serve the purposes of allowing users to discover, download and install Windows Live software and services. Users were able to select the
Windows Live
Windows Live is a discontinued brand name for a set of web services and software products developed by Microsoft as part of its software-as-a-service platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services (all of which were exposed ...
software they wished to install on the website, and the website would pass on the information to the unified installer software such that the installer will only download and install those applications selected.
Windows Live Essentials 2009 (Wave 3)
The ''Windows Live Installer'' application was significantly updated with the subsequent "Windows Live Wave 3" release of applications, with the new inclusion of
Windows Live Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...
(beta) and
Microsoft Office Outlook Connector
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as cale ...
to its suite of products. On October 29, 2008, it was announced at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 that ''Windows Live Installer'' would be renamed as ''Windows Live Essentials'', and would be integrated into
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
to allow users to download the included Windows Live applications. However, the Windows Live Essentials applications will not be "bundled" with the Windows 7 operating system. This should allow more frequent updates to the Windows Live Essentials applications outside of major operating system releases.
On December 15, 2008, the "beta refresh" versions of Windows Live Essentials applications were released.
This release included many changes since the previous beta release based on user feedback. A significant visual change in this release was the introduction of new application icons which added a common design theme to all the Live Essentials applications. The words "beta" were removed from most of the build numbers. On January 7, 2009, the "beta refresh" versions were released as the final versions, with the notable exception of Windows Live Movie Maker.
Microsoft updated Windows Live Essentials Wave 3 on February 13, 2009 and again on August 19, 2009, when Windows Live Movie Maker was released out of beta and significantly updated with additional features since the beta version released in December 2008. The final build number was 14.0.8117.0416.
After the release of Windows Live Essentials 2011, which dropped support for
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
, Windows Live Essentials 2009 was renamed to ''Windows Live Essentials for Windows XP'' and was made available for Windows XP users to help maintain the product user base.
Windows Live Essentials 2011 (Wave 4)
Microsoft released a public beta for the next major update for Windows Live Essentials dubbed "Wave 4" on June 24, 2010.
The updated applications include
Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...
,
Mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
,
Photo Gallery,
Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...
,
Writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
,
Family Safety,
Mesh, and
Messenger Companion. For Windows Live Mesh, the application has been rewritten to be based on the previous Live Mesh and will allow PC and Mac users to keep their documents, pictures and music in sync across multiple computers. It was also announced that
Windows Live Toolbar
Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing ...
will be discontinued and replaced by the
Bing Bar.
In addition, the
ribbon
A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
was incorporated into Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and Writer. The Wave 4 beta has dropped support for
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
;
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
or
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
is required for its use.
The beta refresh of Windows Live Essentials 2011 was released on August 17, 2010. Microsoft released the final version of Windows Live Essentials 2011 on September 30, 2010. The applications were updated with a
hotfix/
QFE (except for Mesh and Family Safety) on December 1, 2010, and that update became available through
Windows Update
Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Wind ...
from March 20, 2011. On May 2, 2012, Microsoft announced the re-branding of Windows Live. Although all applications in Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite will continue to function on Windows Vista, 7, and 8, there will be no significant updates made to these applications in the future.
In June 2014, Microsoft announced that Windows Live Essentials 2011 would no longer be available for download on Windows Vista.
Windows Essentials 2012 (Wave 5)
Microsoft released Windows Essentials 2012 on August 7, 2012, for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. Windows Essentials 2012 included SkyDrive for Windows (later renamed
OneDrive), and dropped Windows Live Mesh, Messenger Companion and Bing Bar. Microsoft Family Safety is also installed for Windows 7 users only, as Windows 8 has built-in family safety functionalities.
Further, Windows Essentials 2012 also dropped the "Windows Live" branding from the installer itself, as well as from programs such as Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, which have been branded Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker respectively. These two programs have also received several updates and enhancements since their 2011 release, including video stabilization, waveform visualizations, new narration tracks, audio emphasizing, default save as H.264 format, and enhanced text effects for Movie Maker; as well as
AutoCollage integration and addition of
Vimeo
Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...
as a publishing partner for Photo Gallery. No significant changes or re-branding were made in this release for other programs such as Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Writer. It is still possible today to download the original pack for Windows Essentials 2012. Such links are provided in the form of links to the
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
.
Deprecation
Some of the apps included in the package are unsupported on Windows 8.1 and 10 and are removed after an upgrade. The Facebook integration in Photo Gallery and Movie Maker broke due to Facebook API changes. Microsoft turned off Windows Live Messenger's service and redirected users to Skype, another one of its messaging services; the installer has not been updated to reflect this change. Windows Live Mail no longer works with Outlook.com using the proprietary DeltaSync protocol due to removal of support for the latter from Outlook.com, but can be configured to use such accounts using either IMAP or POP3 protocols. Windows Live Writer no longer works with Blogger due to Blogger's authentication API changes. The suite had otherwise not received a major upgrade since 2012, and it had not received any updates through Windows Update since 2014, although Microsoft offered a downloadable buggy update in December 2015.
Microsoft announced that the suite would be officially retired on January 10, 2017, and would no longer be available for download, and that after the end of support date applications already installed would continue to work but with "an increased security risk associated with use of unsupported products past their end of support date."
References
Further reading
#
External links
*
Download for Windows Live Essentials 2012
{{Windows Live
Essentials
Windows-only freeware
2006 software
Discontinued Microsoft software
Products and services discontinued in 2017