Windows Experience Blog : Software+Services

Updated Windows Live Web Services Rolling Out

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:17:52 GMT

Yesterday, some of you took notice that your account page for Windows Live has been updated with the new Windows Live look and feel. That was just the beginning! As Dharmesh Meta, Director of Windows Live Product Management (and all around good guy), explains – over the next 24 hours you will be seeing quite a bit of changes occurring across the board for Windows Live. We’re launching updated versions of Windows Live Home, Spaces, Events, and SkyDrive and launching completely new services for Windows Live such as Groups, Photos, and Profile. Essentially we’re launching “the new face of Windows Live” on the web today.

Changes you’ll see include a brand new common header across all the Windows Live web services (with themes) as well as 25GB of *free* storage in SkyDrive and more! For an overview of what’s changing – see today’s post from Dharmesh with lots of cool screenshots.

I’ll be posting later this week about the Windows Live web services after they are all officially live for everyone.

Keep your life in sync with Windows Live

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:05:00 GMT

Brian Hall, General Manager for the Windows Live Business Group, just posted to Windows Live Wire an exciting overview Windows Live today and how the pieces of Windows Live will fit together to give users a connected experience. He is sharing more details regarding the next “wave” of products and services coming for Windows Live designed to help keep your life in sync.

In September, we talked a bit about the new Windows Live products and services and released client betas for the Windows Live suite of applications – now known as the Windows Live Essentials. Those betas are still available for you to try out today at download.live.com. The Windows Live Team is working hard to ship the Windows Live Essentials out of Beta soon.

The Windows Live Hotmail Team has also recently rolled out a new update to Windows Live Hotmail as well.

On top of the Windows Live Essentials, we’ll be shipping updated versions of the Windows Live web services.

Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Spaces, and Windows Live SkyDrive will all be updated.

We’re will also be updating the main homepage for Windows Live. The redesigned homepage for Windows Live will serve as your gateway to the Windows Live services - with a strong emphasis on the What’s New feature which consists of activities from your friends on Windows Live. You will be able to add friends to your “network” and see what they are doing via Personal Message updates from Windows Live Messenger, recent blog posts on their Windows Live Spaces, or photos uploaded to Windows Live.

What’s New also lets you pull in updates from partners such as Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, WordPress, and more. If you have friends on Windows Live pulling in their Twitter updates into their profiles, it will appear in What’s New.

And remember – Windows Live Messenger will now pull in What’s New directly into the client for quick access to what’s going on with your friends on Windows Live. You will be able to access What’s New through Windows Live Toolbar as well.

(Pssst… What’s New is my favorite Windows Live feature!)

A brand new Windows Live Profile page will let you update your Personal Message directly from the web, view your Network, and add “Favorite things” such as books, movies and music. Your friends can leave you Notes on your profile too.

We’re also introducing a new Photos experience for Windows Live utilizing Windows Live SkyDrive as well as Windows Live Groups.

On the mobile side – there will be new points of access to Windows Live on any mobile device with a browser. You will be able to use your mobile phone to access What’s New and see what your friends are doing, update your Personal Message, upload photos to Windows Live, and manage your email and calendar.

I’m pretty excited for what’s being done with Windows Live and I think you will be too. For all the latest and great news and information on Windows Live, you should bookmark and subscribe to the Windows Live Wire blog. You can also follow Windows Live Wire via Twitter as well.

As mentioned at PDC this year – Windows + Windows Live will complete the Windows experience as they work together hand-in-hand.

The Complete Windows Experience – Windows 7 + Windows Live

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:55:21 GMT

I love Windows Live by itself with all the new Windows Live web services and the application suite. But the Windows 7 + Windows Live connection is looking even more exciting. Here at PDC we’re talking about how Windows 7 + Windows Live will “complete the Windows Experience” together. Because this *is* the Windows Experience Blog – I feel it is important to highlight and emphasize this a bit. Matter a fact, Steven Sinofsky highlighted this during his keynote today as part of Microsoft’s commitment to software + services.

Microsoft has learned that many end-user experiences need to be updated more frequently. Instead of waiting for the next Windows release, we began delivering updated versions of the Windows Live applications to improve those end-user experiences.

While this was a great way to improve the Windows experience for users, many of these updates in Windows Live Wave 2 seemed duplicative of applications already in Windows.

To address this, Microsoft will now only ship these applications (which include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer and now Windows Live Movie Maker) as part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite.

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Photo Gallery

Windows Live Movie Maker

Windows Live Family Safety Filter

The Windows Live Essentials suite has been in public beta since September and available for you to try at download.live.com. You can read my post here on the new Windows Live experiences seen in these betas.

I look forward to talking more about the Windows 7 + Windows Live experience and how it completes the Windows Experience here in the future.

More Countries Added to the Live Mesh Technical Preview

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:11:00 GMT

General Manager Amit Mital, who runs Live Mesh & Developer Platform, has posted today that the Live Mesh Technical Preview (www.mesh.com) has expanded to 3 new countries: Canada, India, and Ireland. In signing up for the Live Mesh Technical Preview, folks from these countries will still need to run with an English locale for now.

Currently, sign-ups for the Live Mesh Technical Preview are available in the following countries without a waitlist:

United States
United Kingdom
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
India
Ireland

Amit says that the Live Mesh Team still does have a maximum limit of users who will be allowed in to the Live Mesh Technical Preview. As long as sign-ups remain below that limit, anyone in the above listed countries is free to sign-up. However, once that limit is met - sign-ups for the Live Mesh Technical Preview will be closed until the team is ready to open it up again for more users. So sign-up now!

Angus Logan also blogged about today's Live Mesh announcement. Angus is a Product Manager for the Live Platform. He blogs a lot about cool developer-related Live Platform technologies. Because Live Mesh is a platform and falls under Live Platform - Angus is a Live Mesh expert and often showcases Live Mesh on this blog. Matter a fact, I'd like to point out a post of his from a few months ago consisting of several tips and tricks on how Live Mesh can boost productivity in Windows Vista. Angus - more tips and tricks please!

Remember, Live Mesh is in the Technical Preview stage. This is essentially pre-Beta. While the Live Mesh Technical Preview has been incredibly reliable and awesome for me - because Live Mesh is still in the pre-Beta stage there are still risks just as there would be for any pre-Beta software release.

Live Mesh Technology Preview Announced

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:14:00 GMT

Today Microsoft is unveiling a technology preview to a really neat new software+services platform called Live Mesh. Live Mesh is a brand new platform that helps your devices act together through the internet enabling users such as you and me to manage, access, and share their files and applications from nearly anywhere. By bringing user's files, applications, and devices together along with the combination of social networking (such as with news feeds) - Live Mesh creates a unique platform experience.

First and foremost Live Mesh is a new platform. The first phase of the technology preview process provides a foundational experience that exposes core concepts and functionality of the platform. In the near future developers can expect to be able to take advantage of Live Mesh to extend their software to the Web, and their services to the desktop and devices.

Today's technology preview is a pre-Beta release designed to get early feedback to make the platform even better.

I've been lucky to be given the chance to play with Live Mesh for the last couple weeks. I've had a great experience with Live Mesh so far and thought I'd share my experiences with you.

So the first thing I did was logged in to http://www.mesh.com/. Live Mesh of course supports Windows Live ID. After logging in with my Windows Live ID - I am taken to the screen where I can add/remove devices to my "mesh".

To set up folders to sync with my devices in my "mesh" I need to go to my Live Desktop. This is essentially your device in the cloud where I can manage all my Live Mesh Folders when I'm not in front of one of my usual PC or mobile. You create folders in your Live Desktop and choose which devices you want to sync them with (after you add them to your Live Mesh of course). You'll notice I have three PCs added to my Live Mesh.

On my Live Desktop I have three folders I've created. The first Live Mesh Folder I created was the one you see here called "Mesh". I use this folder to toss files that get synced to the Live Mesh cloud - and then synced to all my Live Mesh devices. You'll notice that the Live Mesh folks have tried to present a familiar approach to file management. You can even drag the folder window to any place on your Live Desktop.

After creating a folder on my Live Desktop, I can choose to sync it with specific devices in my Live Mesh. I chose to sync with all devices. Because the Live Mesh client was installed on my PCs, the "Mesh" Live Mesh Folder automatically appeared on the desktop of all of those PCs I chose to sync with.

When I open the "Mesh" Live Mesh Folder on any of my Windows Vista PCs the standard Windows Explorer window opens but with a Live Mesh addition on the right-hand side. The Mesh Bar on the Windows Explorer window lets me access my Live Mesh information for that folder.

Each Live Mesh Folder has a News Feed where it displays a history of information like when files were added, when they were removed, as well as who added them and notes. This experience exists both on my Windows desktops as well as my Live Desktop.

A Live Mesh client sits on my Windows PCs in the taskbar. I can use it to quickly access my Live Mesh "stuff" (Live Mesh Folders, devices and news).

I have three tabs that you can switch between my news feed for all my Live Mesh Folders, my Devices, and my news.

From the Devices tab, I can use Live Mesh Remote Desktop to easily access any of my PCs. Building on the awesome Windows Remote Desktop technologies - I can login to any of my PCs running Live Mesh. You'll see that Live Mesh Remote Desktop also has a Mesh Bar.

I can also login to my PCs remotely using Live Mesh via the website as well.

I continue to use Live Mesh for syncing data and the overall all-out access to my information and devices. The above is just a quick overview of my experiences. To quickly recap - Live Mesh provides me with a way to manage and interact with all my data, devices and people.

You can read more about today's Live Mesh Technology Preview announcement from Amit Mital who is the General Manager for Live Mesh on the Windows Live Dev Blog. Keep your eyes on the Live Mesh Blog as well. Noah Edelstein, Group Program Manager for Mesh Platform Experiences, has a in-depth post discussing Live Mesh and possibly answering your questions about Live Mesh - like why you should care about this platform experience.

Channel 10's Nic Fillingham has a great hands-on video of Live Mesh worth checking out! Watch it here in Silverlight bliss:

Hands on with Live Mesh

I believe this is Nic's first video since joining the Channel 10 Team. I look forward to seeing more from Nic in the future.

Oh and Jon Udell over on Channel 9 got a chance to sit down with Ray Ozzie to discuss his role as Chief Software Architect and discusses Microsoft's overall software+services strategy.

You can sign up to get an invite to test Live Mesh for yourself here by logging in with your Windows Live ID.

Submitting Feedback for the Windows Live Apps and Services

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:07:00 GMT

I get this question a lot from folks testing and using the Windows Live apps and services: How do I submit feedback?

There are several really good options users can use to submit feedback for Windows Live. I'm going to showcase those options here.

1. Windows Live - Send Feedback (feedback.live.com). Users can go to feedback.live.com and choose from the list of available Windows Live applications and services to leave feedback for. This site is open to *anyone*. Each team has a mechanism internally for taking in this feedback or suggestion as they continue their work. Once you click on a specific app or service - you will be directed to a feedback for to fill out.

2. Windows Live Product Team Blogs. Almost all the Windows Live apps and services have an official team blog you can visit to read the latest from their team about their product. This can also be a great place for leaving feedback. Many of these blogs allow for comments. You can leave feedback and suggestions through leaving a comment on their blog (all you need to do is log in with your Windows Live ID). How do you find all the team blogs? Simple. I have created a special page specifically for all the Microsoft Team Blogs that exist. You can see the list of Windows Live blogs here. The Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Mail teams even have a blog specifically set up for email support. You can also visit the new Windows Live Wire blog for all the Windows Live blogs as well.

These two options are available to anyone wanting to leave feedback on the Windows Live applications (such as Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Writer) or the Windows Live web services (such as Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Hotmail, and Windows Live Spaces).

Please take note: in leaving feedback either through feedback.live.com or a specific Windows Live product blog - try to be constructive in the feedback you leave. Saying "this product sucks" is not constructive feedback. Instead - try explaining why you feel the product or service is not working for you and what you think they could do to make it better. This kind of feedback will help the Windows Live teams plan and ship changes, enhancements, and features that will be the product or service better for everyone. Not to sound cliché but - you can make a difference.

In writing about the Windows Live apps and services here - both Nick and I try to relay as much feedback via our comments as possible to the specific Windows Live teams as well.

Announcing the Windows Live suite with unified installer

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:05:00 GMT

Today Chris Jones, Corporate Vice President of Windows Live Experience Program Management, has announced the availability today of new betas for the new wave of Windows Live applications. These new beta releases showcase Microsoft's goal in releasing the new Windows Live applications together. These new betas are being released with a brand new unified installer for the Windows Live suite. Users will be able to download a single installer for the Windows Live suite in which they can pick and choose the specific Windows Live apps they want to install on their PC's.

To showcase the new installer for the Windows Live Suite - I've got a video demo on how the new installer works. Check it out:

Video: Windows Live Installer Demo

The unified installer is an impressive addition to Windows Live and is a much easier install experience for the user.

Shipping with today's betas is also the broad availability of the new Windows Live Photo Gallery. Previously, Windows Live Photo Gallery was a closed beta. With the new unified installer for the Windows Live Suite, users can now choose to install Windows Live Photo Gallery. I'll be talking more about Windows Live Photo Gallery in separate post very soon.

The Windows Live suite currently consists of Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Writer, and Windows Live Photo Gallery with Windows Live OneCare Family Safety. These applications bridge the gap between the Windows Vista PC and the Windows Live web services. Windows Live Mail allows you to sync your email and contacts from Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Photo Gallery lets you publish your images to Windows Live Spaces. Overall, the Windows Live suite is designed to extend your Windows experience by tapping into Windows Live. Of course choice comes with the Windows Live Suite as well. You can use Windows Live Mail to check any POP3 or IMAP email account and Windows Live Writer supports a great variety of online blogging services.

Give the Windows Live Suite a try today.

Update 1:16PM PDT - Looks like the Windows Live installer page is now online. Give it a shot!