Download Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 Beta – Available June 24
Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 June 2010 10:22 Written by Mire_B Wednesday, 23 June 2010 10:22
Later today, Microsoft will start offering the public Beta of Windows Live Essentials Wave 4. From the Windows team blog:
Tomorrow, hot on the heels of the Hotmail roll-out, the new Windows Live Essentials becomes available for public beta testing. Windows Live Essentials beta requires Windows Vista or Windows 7, and is available in English, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Spanish. As soon as the beta goes live tomorrow (we’ll update this blog post when it does), you’ll be able to get it from here.
[update: oops! Dutch will be available also!]
As previously announced, this release of Essentials is focused on two things: connecting Windows 7 to the cloud services you already use, and making everyday tasks simpler, so that you can do more on your PC.
Connecting Windows 7 to the cloud
We’ve designed Essentials to connect your Windows experience to the web services you already use – not just the ones from Microsoft. The new betas of Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger connect to photo and video sharing (SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, SmugMug), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin), email (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), blogging (Spaces, WordPress, Blogger), and document productivity (Office Web Apps) services. And the new Windows Live Sync keeps your files synchronized across multiple PCs and in the cloud. You can even directly access your PC over the web with Sync’s new remote desktop feature.
Making everyday tasks simpler and enabling new possibilities
People like to get creative on their PCs as much as they like seeing what everyone else has been up to. Whether it’s Retouch, Panoramic Stitch, or Photo Fuse in Photo Gallery, Auto Movie in Movie Maker, or Photo Mail in the new Windows Live Mail, we think you’ll be excited by the new additions to Essentials that make advanced tasks, well, easy. If you haven’t yet tried PhotoFuse to merge together the best of several photos, it’s a lot of fun.
We hope you’ll enjoy the new Essentials beta. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
- Piero Sierra
Group Program Manager, Windows Live Essentials
Block the Windows Browser Choice Update in Europe
Last Updated on Wednesday, 3 March 2010 10:07 Written by Mire_B Wednesday, 3 March 2010 10:07
Windows users in Europe (the European Economic Area) are starting to receive the Browser Choice Update through Windows Update, per the agreement Microsoft reached with the European Commission.
This update is applicable for the duration of the agreement with the European Commission, and applies to the following supported operating systems:
Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows XP Service Pack 3
All editions of Windows Vista
All editions of Windows 7
Future versions of the Windows client operating system that are released within the duration of the agreement with the European Commission.
It’s very easy to block the Browser Choice Update in the eventuality that you don’t need it, or if you have to manage a number of desktops and don’t want users to go click-happy with browser installs. Here’s what you have to do, according to Microsoft:
Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\BrowserChoice
Value name: Enable
Value type: DWORD
Possible values: 1 Display the Browser Choice update (default)
0 Do not display the Browser Choice update
Learn MorePlatform Update for Windows Vista Disappears in Vista to Vista Upgrades
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 December 2009 01:15 Written by Mire_B Thursday, 17 December 2009 01:15
When upgrading from one Vista edition to another Vista edition, the functionality in KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista” may be lost. This scenario occurs when the original Vista edition had KB 971644 installed.
When upgrading from one edition of Windows Vista with KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista” to another edition of Windows Vista (for example, upgrading from Professional to Ultimate), the registry keys added by KB 971644 will be removed from the registry and pre-existing binaries which were updated by Windows 7 IP will be replaced with the non-updated versions provided by the new edition of Vista. New binaries introduced by KB 971644 that did not previously exist in Windows Vista will remain but without their corresponding registry key entries.
To resolve this issue, reinstall the KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista” update after upgrading to the new edition.
The following scenario is provided as an example of this behavior.
Steps:
1. The user has installed Windows Vista Home Premium edition with appropriate service packs
2. The user then installs KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista”
3. Later, the user upgrades to Windows Vista Ultimate edition with appropriate service packs
Result:
· KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista” is overwritten on the system
o All KBs related to KB 971644 under “Installed Update” entries are removed
o Pre-existing Vista binaries that were updated by KB are replaced with the pre-KB 97164 versions provided in the Vista upgrade.
o New binaries introduced to Vista through KB 971644 will remain unchanged in the system folders
o All registry keys for all binaries in KB 971644 are deleted
· Upgraded Windows Vista functions normally but KB 971644 functionality is no longer available.
Required Steps to restore functionality:
1. Re-install the KB 971644 – “Platform Update for Windows Vista” update .
Result:
All KB 971644 updates are applied and KB 971644 functionality is available to the upgraded system.
Learn More