Windows Live Essentials announced

By Kip Kniskern on June 2, 2010 6:00 AM

16 comments

Looks like we’re one step closer to getting our hands on Windows Live Wave 4. Tonight (9pm pdt) Microsoft is taking the wraps off their preview of Windows Live Essentials, which you can check out at www.windowslivepreview.com. Sometime soon (think end of the month), you’ll be able to download the public beta of Essentials. As we laid out for Mary Jo Foley today, the schedule is supposed to go something like this:

First, Windows Live Essentials beta gets announced. Then, on June 15, Hotmail begins rollout. Somewhere end of June (blogger Francisco Martin is reporting June 21-25), Essentials downloads will be available and the public beta starts. Final is “in the fall” – we’ve heard that it will coincide with Windows 7 SP1, as the “first big feature update to Win7″

If you’ve been following along at home, you should have a pretty good idea of what’s coming up with (what we think will be called) Windows Live Essentials 2011: Ribbons all around, the re-emergence of Live Mesh as Live Sync, some really cool new features in Photo Gallery like Photo Fuse:

and people tagging:

and lots more, most of which we’ve been telling you about already. You can check out Inside Windows Live or WindowsLivePreview.com for more.

Posted in News | Tags: Essentials, Wave 4

Comments

kirk

2GB limit on Skydrive Sync Folders is a total deal-breaker. Hopefully Mesh continues to be in operation for the time being, at least until Microsoft ups the limit, even if it takes a paid subscription to do it.
http://revanmj.pl/ Michał Jakubowski

2 GB!? No Web Office for synced folders!? And no word about mobile version. It is big disappointment …

insanelyapple

dodaj jeszcze to, że na polską wersję pakietu będzie trzeba poczekać. / of course not all localized versions are avaible now.

Jesper

This thing right here shows why Microsoft missed an opportunity to really make Sync great:

http://www.windowslivepreview.com/essentials/sync/compare/

Why have this as two internal competing products? This could easily share space and features, making everything more userfriendly og generally useful. What, I can’t even see my Sync folder photos in a slideshow, when I can with everything else on Skydrive?

Sync should not be a seperate folder… it should be connected to everything on SkyDrive with an option to sync specific folders to specific computers.
gyussz

Microsoft! Stop announcing without letting us to download it! pls :P
cleverclogs

SHIT, I REALLY need more space on Skydrive Sync than 2 GB. The data I produce consumes so much more than that but less than Mesh’s current limit, and is useful to be accessed in more than two locations, ie, is more secure than using a memory stick. But now it appears locked in to 2 GB. So, what am I to do?
anonymuos

Photo Fuse appears to be the rebirth of Microsoft Research GroupShot.
pdg

Disappointed. Really.
Mesh integration in Skydrive was the killer feature I was waiting for.
Instead not only they’re keeping them separated, but they’re lowering the mesh/sync quota from 5 to 2Gb, and they’re not dropping the 50Mb filse size limit on skydrive.
For once they could come earlier than google: syncing docs is the first requested feature on google support, and it won’t take long until they come up with a solution.

As I guess it will take another year for more updates to the services, I don’t know if I’ll stick to windows live.

keoz

All of that will come eventually remember skydrive started low, and will become the central storage on the cloud, it will grow imminently

JohnCz

The smaller disk quota doesn’t bother me as much as not having the option to pay for more storage and to lift file size caps. If that is their intent, they should acknowledge it now without revealing the pricing just yet.
Ruben

I just want to add to the dissapointment regarding Skydrive and Sync integration. It has been known that it only would be 2GB and lousy integration, but seeing the comparison Jesper posted is just depressing.
efjay

Anyone still in any doubt that Microsoft just doesnt get it?
http://webscannotes.com Lem

I thought that some of the new features are pretty neat, especially the fact that Windows Live Essentials can now connect to non-Microsoft services, but I thought that a better strategy would be to build these into Internet Explorer browser itself. Some recent built-into-browser examples that comes to mind are Firefox Sync and Google Chrome Bookmark Sync. Now, if Internet Explorer could have Windows Live Essentials built into the browser itself, maybe IE could reverse the slide of its market share. :)

JohnCz

Those bookmark sync features don’t drive browser adoption. The upcoming IE9 release is focused on standards and performance. So whether that sync capability is installed as part IE or via Live Sync add-on, I don’t think it matter much. Actually, I wish Microsoft would do more with SkyDrive Favorites. Like…
1. Be able to either set sub-folder share permissions or create my own top level “Shared Favorite” folder(s).
2. Display these next to your local browser favorites.

Chris

I wonder if in wave 5 we will see a internet broswer?

as for wave 4. It looks promising. I dont care how long it takes. I just want a STABLE product.

Just because the evil old google has new shit every other day does not mean microsoft has to follow.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=551119507 Brent Vermilyea

I use the current version of Photo Gallery very rarely. But I have to tell you, as a part-time photographer myself, I was surprisingly impressed to see “Noise Reduction” offered in this Wave 4 update. That is a pro feature–one that is hard to handle in Adobe Photoshop and other programs. If it’s even half as good as Photoshop but times easier, it will be my go-to program for high-noise images.

I’m even thinking of switching my photo-management software to this…and this is FREE software.

I also can’t wait to play around with the new WL Messenger and Mail. I use those programs extensively, and they both look like impressive upgrades.

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