Spaces Team shuts down their blog (eh, what?)

Kip Kniskern — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:45:39 GMT

From the News of the Weird Department, the team that makes the blogging software for Microsoft, Windows Live Spaces, has decided to shut down their, umm, blog. Posts on The Space Craft and Windows Live Wire announced on Friday that the two would be merging, with content appearing on Windows Live Wire (the Windows Live team blog). Judging by the numbers of commenters on the posts asking for help with their Windows Live issues, it seems to us that Windows Live needs MORE blogs, not less, but maybe that’s just us. The posts helpfully provide links to the Windows Live Twitter account, and to the Windows Live Messenger Facebook page, apparently just to add an even more surreal spin to the story.

Of course we know probably better than anyone how tough it is to blog consistently about Windows Live, but we’ve always found it slightly bizarre that there aren’t lots more Spaces bloggers. Rob Dolin has done a good job, and there are others, but this is one team at Microsoft who don’t seem to know how to eat their own dogfood.

Webcam issues with Messenger stir comments

Kip Kniskern — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:58:44 GMT

Last week Windows Live Wire, the Windows Live team blog posted an acknowledgement that “a small number of you are experiencing audio and video problems with your webcam after installing the latest version of Windows Live Messenger”. According to the post, the problem stems from issues with McAfee Site Advisor, and while McAfee is working on a fix, there is a workaround:

As a workaround, McAfee recommends configuring SiteAdvisor to stop monitoring Live Messenger.

Navigate to the following folder:
Windows XP/2000/Vista (32-bit): C:\Program Files\McAfee\SiteAdvisor
Windows Vista (64-bit): C:\Program Files (x86)\McAfee\SiteAdvisor

Right-click on the file sasets.ini and choose Open With, then select Notepad.

Locate the section titled [msnmsgr.exe].

Change Enabled=1 to Enabled=0.

Click File and select Save.

Close sasets.ini and restart your computer for changes to take effect.

However there are some 200 comments on the post, and while a portion of them are, well, less than informative or on topic, a number of others suggest that the issue is more widespread than just a problem with McAfee. Here’s one typical comment, from “Peter”:

I'd like to know if the Windows Live team plans to accept responsibility for the 0x8AC70013 error rather than blaming it on McAfee. I have been getting after downloading the new version Live Messenger and I don't use McAfee. Also, I would appreciate it if the older version of Live Messenger was made available until the problems are fixed.

Indeed the problem seems to be contained only to the latest version of Messenger, so rolling back to an earlier version fixes the audio and video issues occuring in the latest one.

Are you having issues using a webcam with Messenger? Are you on McAfee, or not?

LiveSide - News blog : Windows Live Wire

Spaces Team shuts down their blog (eh, what?)

Webcam issues with Messenger stir comments