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, Washin ...

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 t ...

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" mean ...

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 Image sharing, or photo sharing, is the publishing or transfer of digital photos online. Image sharing websites offer services such as uploading, hosting, managing and sharing of photos (publicly or privately). This function is provided through ...

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 s ...

ging, and

parental control ''Parental Control'' is a reality television show about people looking for love produced by MTV. The two directors, Brendon Carter and Bruce Klassen, have also created other MTV shows. In Asia, this show was aired on Channel V from 2007–2009. ...

software. ''Essentials'' programs are designed to integrate well with each other, with Microsoft Windows, 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 Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web vers ...

and Outlook.com.

Applications

Windows Essentials 2012 includes the following applications: * Photo Gallery * Movie Maker *

Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

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 ...

(later integrated into Windows 8.1 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 Windows Essentials applications support installation on

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 released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

, Windows 8.1,

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 generall ...

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 developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

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 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 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 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,

and

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 expose ...

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 (beta) and Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 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

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 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

, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker,

, Family Safety,

Mesh A mesh is a barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible or ductile materials. A mesh is similar to a web or a net in that it has many attached or woven strands. Types * A plastic mesh may be extruded, oriented, exp ...

, 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 Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety ...

. In addition, the ribbon

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

;

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 A hotfix or quick-fix engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hotf ...

/ 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

), 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 a ...

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

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