Windows Live Writer is a discontinued desktop blog-publishing application that was developed by

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, Washin ...

and distributed as part of 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 expose ...

suite of apps. The last major release of Windows Live Writer came out in 2012 ( end-of-life), and the software was completely discontinued in January 2017. An open-source

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

of Windows Live Writer was released as Open Live Writer on December 9, 2015.

Functionality

The software featured

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

authoring, photo-publishing and map-publishing functionality, and was compatible with

Windows Live Spaces Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging platform and social network service. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking services, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of comm ...

, SharePoint blogs,

Blogger 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 ...

LiveJournal LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, a ...

TypePad Typepad is a blogging service owned by Endurance International Group, previously owned by SAY Media (from the merger of Six Apart Ltd and VideoEgg). Originally launched in October 2003, Typepad is based on Six Apart's Movable Type platform, and ...

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

, Telligent Community, PBlogs.gr, JournalHome, the MetaWeblog API, the Movable Type API, Blogengine,

Squarespace Squarespace, Inc. is an American website building and hosting company which is based in New York City, USA. It provides software as a service for website building and hosting, and allows users to use pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop ...

, and all blogs that supported Really Simple Discovery. Windows Live Writer introduced the Provider Customization API that enables both rich customization of Windows Live Writer's behavior as well as the opportunity to add new functionality to the product.

, and

had all taken advantage of this API to expose additional service-specific features within Windows Live Writer. Windows Live Writer was localized to 48 different languages.

History

Windows Live Writer was based on Onfolio Writer, a product Microsoft obtained from the acquisition of

Onfolio 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 ...

. On November 6, 2007, version 2008 was released. It includes inline spell checking, table editing, ability to add categories, page authoring for

and

, support for excerpts and extended entries, improved hyperlinking and image insertion, and a new "Paste Special" function. Also improved integration to

SharePoint 2007 SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...

support, new

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

s enabling custom extensions by weblog providers, automatic synchronization of local and online edits, integration with Windows Live Gallery, and support for "Blogger Labels". On December 15, 2008, Windows Live Writer version 2009 was released as part of the

Windows Live Essentials Windows Essentials (formerly Windows Live Essentials and Windows Live Installer) is a discontinued suite of Microsoft freeware applications that includes email, instant messaging, photo sharing, blogging, and parental control software. ''Essentia ...

suite. Released on September 30, 2010, Windows Live Writer 2011 introduced the new Ribbon user interface. On August 7, 2012, Windows Live Writer 2012 was released as part of the Windows Essentials 2012 suite. Version 2012 became the last major update to both the Windows Essentials suite and the Writer app. On January 10, 2017, Windows Essentials 2012 and all its apps, including Windows Live Writer, reached the end of support, meaning it would no longer receive new features, bug fixes, and security updates. The software itself is also no longer available for download from Microsoft.

Fork

A free and open-source

of Windows Live Writer, known as Open Live Writer, has been released on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continu ...

on December 9, 2015. The latest release of this fork was in 2017 and the last change on the source code was in 2019. It has since been abandoned.

Gallery

File:Wlwriter1.jpg, Version 1.0.141 (Beta 1) File:WLWriter.jpg, Internal version featuring the original ''Flair'' design File:WLWriter.PNG, Windows Live Writer 2008 File:Windows Live Writer.png, Windows Live Writer 2009

References

External links

* {{Windows Live Windows-only freeware

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 ...

Blog client software Free software Microsoft free software Formerly proprietary software Windows-only free software