Using and Understanding Windows Live Services

In late 2005, about a year before it completed development of Windows Vista, Microsoft announced that it was radically changing its online strategy to better compete with Google, Yahoo!, and other companies. Microsoft’s strategy is simple: Because it already dominates the operating system market with Windows, it no longer needs to take the technically dubious (and antitrust unfriendly) tact of bundling online services directly in Windows, as it did in the past. Instead, Microsoft’s online services are combining capabilities from both desktop software and online services to deliver the best possible user experience. More to the point, Microsoft can build off the success of Windows without truly taking advantage of its market power. Yes, most of its services will require Windows, but none will ship directly in the box with Windows. It may seem like a subtle distinction. But after a decade of antitrust problems both in the United States and around the world, Microsoft is finally doing the right thing, both for the company itself and its customers. Previously, most of Microsoft’s online services were developed through its MSN division, which used to develop the company’s Internet access services. But now, that work has all been brought into the Windows Division. And not so surprisingly, the online services are now being marketed with the Windows Live brand.

You might not be surprised to discover that the various Windows Live services and desktop products are simply updated or new versions of products and services that were once being developed by MSN and were once branded with the MSN name. That is indeed exactly what happened. Windows Live isn’t Microsoft’s only online initiative. In tandem with Windows Live, Microsoft is developing a set of online services around its Office suite of productivity applications called, naturally enough, Office Live. And the software maker already had a brilliant set of online services for gamers called Xbox Live. Together, these three sets of services are often simply referred to as Microsoft’s Live services. When Microsoft announced its strategy to enhance the Windows product line with a set of online products and services under the Windows Live umbrella, it wasn’t clear exactly what form the resulting software would take. Since then, however, Microsoft has shipped an alarming amount of Windows Live products and services, almost all of which are updated regularly. Staying on top of these products and services would almost be a career in and of itself. Because the Windows Live services are being updated so frequently, it doesn’t make sense to provide an in-depth look at every single one of them. Instead, we’ll first discuss the Windows Live services that Microsoft is promoting directly in Windows Vista. Then, we’ll provide a laundry list of some of the other interesting Windows Live products and services that are available at the time of this writing. You might be surprised by what’s out there.

Windows Live Services in Windows Vista Microsoft is promoting Windows Live services in Windows Vista in two key areas. First, a variety of Windows Live services are advertised in the Offers from Microsoft section of the Windows Vista Welcome Center, 19-1. Because this window is displayed the very first time you boot into Windows Vista, and then again by default every time you reboot, millions of customers from around the world will be tempted to download and install some of these products. Fortunately, most of the Windows Live offers are for free, high-quality products. Second, Microsoft includes a shortcut in the default Start menu called Windows Live Messenger Download. This shortcut opens Internet Explorer 7 and navigates you to the download page for Microsoft’s instant messaging (IM) application. There is also an identical shortcut in the All Programs portion of the Start menu. Stupidly, if you do choose to install Windows Live Messenger via either one of these shortcuts, the shortcut for installing the product remains on your system. You can, of course, manually delete it by right-clicking it and choosing Delete, and then wading through the inevitable User Account Control (UAC) silliness that ensues any time you do something even remotely dangerous. In the following sections, we’ll take a look at the Windows Live products and services Microsoft is advertising in the Welcome Center.

Going Online and Learning about Windows Live The shortcut titled “Go online and learn about Windows Live” opens Internet Explorer and brings you to a pared-down version of the Windows Live web site (http://get.live.com/) that includes information about just Microsoft’s top-level Windows Live services, such as Windows Live Search (a Google competitor), Live.com (a web portal), Windows Live Expo (an eBay competitor), Windows Live Messenger (instant messaging), Windows Live Mail (the Hotmail replacement), Windows Live Spaces (blogging), and Windows Live OneCare (a comprehensive PC safety product). There are, of course, far more Windows Live products and services available to Windows Vista users. For the full lists, check out the Windows Live Ideas web site (http://ideas.live.com/), which includes both beta (prerelease) and completed products and services.

Downloading Windows Live Toolbar Anyone who’s used Internet Explorer is probably familiar with the notion of helper toolbars that include such things as integrated search boxes, pop-up blockers, and a variety of other useful features. Given how advanced Internet Explorer 7 is - it includes, by default, both an integrated search box and a pop-up blocker, for example - you might think that these toolbars would be a thing of the past. That, alas, is not true. And while the Googles and Yahoo!s of the world are still offering their own brands of Internet Explorer–compatible toolbars, Microsoft has one, too. Not surprisingly, it’s called Windows Live toolbar. The Windows Live toolbar, shown in article 19-2, includes a number of cool features, like smart menus that let you find any location on a map simply by highlighting the address on a web page. There’s a form fill function that saves commonly typed web form information (name, address, telephone number, and so on), sparing you from having to manually enter that data over and over again. The toolbar also integrates with a number of useful Windows Live online services, giving you one-click access to such things as Windows Live Spaces (blogging) and Windows Live Mail.

Signing up Online for Windows Live OneCare There’s probably a great joke just waiting to be told about the operating system company whose buggy products inspired a multibillion dollar security tools market only to see that company enter that market with a security solution designed to protect users from problems caused by vulnerabilities in its own products. Let that one sink in for a second and then get this: Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft’s desktop security solution is excellent. Here’s what you get. Windows Live OneCare is a subscription offering that ostensibly costs $49.95 a year, but in reality can be had for much, much less (think half off or more) at various online and brick-and-mortar electronics retailers. It covers up to three PCs in your home, so you can install OneCare on multiple machines. And it provides a bevy of services, including antivirus and antispyware protection (the latter through its integration with Windows Defender, which you get with Windows Vista), a two-way firewall that’s more capable than the one included with Vista, nice wizard-based file backup and restore functionality, and free technical support via phone, e-mail, or online chat, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s shown in article 19-3. Windows Live OneCare runs continually in the background, monitoring your system, and ensuring it’s always up to date. It also runs regular PC tune-ups, to ensure the system is running at top speed. Overall, Windows Live OneCare is an excellent addition to Windows and is highly recommended unless you’re already using a competing security suite such as Zone Alarm Security Suite or Symantec Norton Internet Security. The only thing missing from Windows Live OneCare, and it’s a curious omission, frankly, is e-mail antispam protection. Microsoft says that most of its customers are already protected from spam via services provided by their e-mail provider (Google Gmail, Microsoft Hotmail or Windows Live Mail, and so on), their Internet service providers (ISPs), or their e-mail clients. And sure enough, if you choose to use the company’s Windows Live Mail service, you do get a certain level of protection against spam, assuming you don’t mind using the web-based client. Not surprisingly, both Zone Alarm Security Suite and Symantec Norton Internet Security offer e-mail antispam capabilities.

Downloading Windows Live Mail Desktop Windows Vista includes a new mail client named Windows Mail that is really just Outlook Express from Windows XP with a new name and a few features removed. (We cover Windows Mail in Article 18.) Well, there’s a new mail client in town, and if you’re slumming around with Windows Mail for some reason, you might want to give it a shot. It’s called Windows Live Mail Desktop, and although it’s based on the same technical underpinnings as Windows Mail (that is, it’s really just Outlook Express in disguise), it does offer one killer feature that’s sorely lacking in Windows Mail: It can access the Web-based Hotmail and Windows Live Mail services. There’s just one catch. Unless you’re paying for a premium Microsoft online service such as Hotmail Plus or MSN Premium, Windows Live Mail Desktop is advertising-supported, so Microsoft and its partners will deliver contextual ads. If you can deal with that, and honestly, it’s not all that annoying, Windows Live Mail Desktop is most certainly a better e-mail client than Windows Mail. article 19-4 shows Windows Live Mail Desktop in action. Here’s what you get. First, Windows Live Mail Desktop works with multiple e-mail accounts. That includes multiple web mail accounts, like Hotmail and Windows Live Mail, as well as multiple POP3 and IMAP accounts.

It even works with AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Second, Windows Live Mail Desktop integrates with other Windows Live services. If you’re running Windows Live Messenger, for example, Windows Live Mail Desktop can import your Messenger contacts and set them up as e-mail contacts. It will also subscribe to any RSS contacts feeds you’ve configured for your Windows Live Spaces blog, if you’ve set one up. There’s also an Active Search pane through which you can launch Internet searches via Windows Live Search. Speaking of RSS feeds, that’s another advantage Windows Live Mail Desktop has over Windows Mail: It’s a full-featured RSS client. We discussed RSS feeds and how that feature works in Internet Explorer 7 back in Article 17, but some people believe it makes more sense to read RSS feeds in an e-mail client. Now you can, with Windows Live Mail Desktop. Like Microsoft’s more powerful Outlook application, Windows Live Mail Desktop also includes a Calendar component, yet another feature that’s lacking in Windows Mail (though you might opt to use the elegant Windows Calendar application we describe in Article 20 instead, of course). The Calendar module is based on the web-based calendar that’s part of Windows Live Mail, and like its e-mail brethren, anything you configure in the client will be synchronized back to the web so you can access your schedule from anywhere that has an Internet connection. If you started off using Windows Mail before realizing there was a better solution out there, fear not: You can easily migrate your Windows Mail accounts and settings to Windows Live Mail Desktop. You’ll be prompted to do so after you’ve installed Windows Live Mail Desktop.