Today, we are going to take a look at the first half of 2010, that is, from January to June.

• January 2010
  • Details and first photos about Messenger Wave 4 emerge.
  • You can now connect SkyDrive to Windows Explorer — using CloudStorageExplorer.
  • Hotmail Wave 4 will add Conversation view for messages.
• February 2010
  • The cloud system Windows Azure launches officially.
  • The social network Facebook launches its new home page layout.
  • Windows Live ID has an outage, causing that customers cannot sign in anywhere.
  • The Windows Live Messenger extension Messenger Plus! becomes silent at Yuna Software, its new owner, but eventually the silence is broken and we can move on to new pastures.
  • The Chinese website cnbeta.com discovers the design of Windows Live Writer 2011.
• March 2010
  • Google acquires the online image editor startup company Picnik.
  • The IT trade fair CeBIT 2010 takes place in Hanover, Germany.
  • The release roadmap for Windows Live Wave 4 surfaces.

• April 2010
  • Live.com changes to be Windows Live Home.
  • Office 2010 reaches RTM status, its development is finished.
  • Chris Jones talks about the future of Windows Live.
• May 2010
  • The search engine Google overhauls its interface.
  • Angus Logan showcases the Windows Live Messenger App for Apples iPhone smartphone.
  • mynetx.net takes an in-depth look at the new features in Hotmail Wave 4.
  • Messenger 2011 retires the existing “View webcam” feature and instead relies on Video calls, which are easier to maintain. Users’ reactions are overly negative and loud.
  • The complete feature list of Windows Live 2011 is published. Remarkable new features include Messenger’s Facebook Chat module as well as Photo Fuse and facial recognition in Photo Gallery.
  • On May 31, Windows Live Events is closing.
• June 2010
  • Office 2010 and Office Web Apps are released to the public. Office Web Apps allow to edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations right in your web browser.
  • The Windows Live Wave 4 public beta launches in 7 languages.

What was your personal highlight in the first half of 2010? I am curious to know!

Windows Live Writer is one of the first applications of the Essentials suite to enter the planning phase for its next release, called “Wave 5.” Now is the time to get involved into the plannings and add your ideas, wishes and bug reports, so the development team can integrate them into their plannings.

This is a call for ideas regarding Windows Live Writer. Consider the following two points:

1. Think about a feature that any Windows Live Writer blogger might find useful. Such as: “Posting to Tumblr.”
2. Now think about a wish that you personally would love to see integrated into the application. Such as: “Add a dictionary to look up words while writing.”

Please enter your ideas as comments below this original post.

However, some problems could arise that you have to overcome. Most importantly: Your processor has to be 64-bit capable. You can detect this from extensions to its name, such as “x64”. Also, you should have access to corresponding drivers for all system devices (that is, graphics card, sound card, network controller, printer etc) — as 32-bit drivers are most not suitable for 64-bit.

Regarding supported programs, there is a highlight: Nearly any 32-bit application runs on 64 bit as well. Exceptions are only system-near programs that hook deeply into Windows, such as disk partitioners or antivirus programs. The other way round, real 64 bit software can make full use of the processor and should thus run better than its 32-bit variant. Though, much depends on the way the application is optimized for 64 bit, that is, how well it is making use of the possibilities that the 64 bit processor offers.

My guest for today is Harrison Hoffman. As Evangelism Product Manager at Microsoft, he likes Windows Live a lot. Why not take a seat and listen to his thoughts?

Klaus: Harrison, it is a pleasure for me to have you here talking with me about you and your relation to Windows Live!

Harrison: Hi Klaus, I’m excited to have the opportunity!

Klaus: Let’s start right away with the first question.
Which sentence would describe you best?

Harrison: In terms of my job at Microsoft, I would say that I am focused on helping people discover all of the amazing things that you can do with Windows Live, as well as trying to make sure that our products reflect what people want. Outside of my job, I would say that I am a recent college grad, living in Seattle, who loves music, traveling, and Chicago sports.

Klaus: You were one of the co-founders of LiveSide.net, a news site talking about Windows Live. What motivated you to engage in this, back in January 2006?

Harrison: Prior to January, 2006, I was involved with beta testing for a variety of Microsoft products, which included various MSN products. I got to know a few other beta testers pretty well, so when we saw Microsoft starting to roll out this rebranding and new set of products called Windows Live, we saw a great opportunity to get out in front of it and provide information on it. So, in January, myself, Chris Overd, and Matthew Weyer started LiveSide, with Kip Kniskern (the current Managing Editor) joining just a few days after we launched.

Klaus: Would you have imagined Windows Live to become one of the main Microsoft products for Windows? Why so?

Harrison: I definitely knew that Microsoft had something special on their hands with Windows Live and that’s why I decided to do LiveSide at that time. From the outside, it was really obvious that there was a lot of momentum building internally around the new set of products, so I had a lot of faith in it. Even back then, when we were seeing some of the concepts for what we now call PC + Cloud services, you could tell that there was a lot of potential there.

Klaus: When you first got the chance to use Windows Live Messenger, what did you think?

Harrison: The first time that I used Messenger was back when it was still called MSN Messenger (version 6 I think). Since it wasn’t really popular in the U.S. then, my initial impression was, “Why don’t more of my friends use this? This product is clearly better than what AIM is bringing to the table.” My impression was that it was a really solid product, with a very useful feature set.

Klaus: Now, after moving your viewpoint from outside to inside MS, how did this affect your relation to Windows Live? Does it make you feel differently?

Harrison: It’s obviously different being on the inside than the outside, when looking at Windows Live, but I can’t say that my opinions have changed greatly. I still stand by what I have always thought about the set of products. When you use all of the Windows Live products together, they provide a value that is greater than what any other company offers. This is truly a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Klaus: Most folks are starting to accommodate with Windows Live 2011 (Wave 4). What do you like most in it?

Harrison: I think that we have a really strong set of products across the board, but if I had to pick one thing, it would probably be Facial Recognition/People Tags in Photo Gallery, combined with the Upload to Facebook feature. The fact that you can take your photos off of your camera after a party, have Photo Gallery import and organize them, as well as recognize your friends for batch tagging, and then upload them to Facebook with the tags is amazing. I think that it is a hugely powerful scenario and one that I personally find very useful. This process is so simple, especially in contrast to the painful experience of tagging photos one by one, person by person on Facebook’s site.

Klaus: Over the past 2 years, focus has drifted away from Instant Messaging, towards Social Networking. How might this trend continue? Will Messenger eventually become super fluent?

Harrison: I wouldn’t really say that we have drifted away from Instant Messaging because we still think that IM is hugely important and that a lot of people love chatting with their friends, but we have definitely placed an additional focus on social content in Messenger 2011. It’s really about completing the idea of staying in touch with the people that you care about and today, sites like Facebook are a big part of that. I’m not sure that I see Messenger becoming superfluous in the near future, but I think that it is safe to say that it will continue to evolve, as every product does.

Klaus: What is your biggest wish for Windows Live Wave 5—and will it come true?

Harrison: As far as the future goes, I am a big fan of the web, especially the social aspects of it. It’s a very fast moving space with a lot of exciting possibilities, so I would like to see Windows Live continue to work with more web services to build in deep integration, like we’ve done with Active Views in Hotmail or Facebook in Photo Gallery/Movie Maker and Messenger. That’s the kind of stuff that really shines for me. As for whether that will come true, I guess we’re going to have to wait and see!

Klaus: We’re looking forward to it! I appreciate you took the time to talk with me about what you think about Windows Live. =)

Harrison: Thanks for having me Klaus!

If you’re interested in checking out what Harrison is doing with Windows Live, you can follow him on Twitter: @harrisonhoffman.

• Spaces was dead to me anyway; but with the popularity of WP Blogs, it could gain some strengths now.
  — George Saadé, Lebanon; mynetx.net
  
• The migration to WordPress.com could be cool — I like it. It is more customizable than Spaces ever were…
  — Maxime Rastello, France; wikikou.fr
  
• I think it is about the best thing they could have done. Obviously the Windows Live team gave up on Spaces long ago, and they could just have pulled the plug.
  — Kip Kniskern, United States; LiveSide.net
  
• Why not? I mean, WordPress is one of the best blog clients platforms… That was the good thing. The bad thing is that with Windows Live Spaces, everybody with a Windows Live ID could create a blog easily.
  — George Nirakis, Greece; mynetx.net

• I find the migration news great! Why? Because I find WordPress great and consider it well done that Windows Live decided to team up with this partner.
  — Nico Plusqua, Germany; Windows Live Buddyscout Team
  
• I’d say it is a good move. Live Spaces never caught on, to be honest. Migrating to WordPress would not leace Spaces users stranded, while at the same time giving Microsoft the chance to refocus their resources. Personally i think its a Win Win situation for both sides (Microsoft and the users).
  — Lance Manasse, United Kingdom; former Windows Live Butterfly
  
• I think it’s the best solution with the least investment that Microsoft can offer its userbase. Microsoft has conceded that they cannot provide a best-in-class service in the arena of blogging, so I applaud their decision to help users migrate to a platform that is an industry leader.

  Given there are a myriad ways to interact with friends and share content (Messenger Social, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), I think that blogging no longer needs to be a central component of the average user’s social experience. Of course, blogging will continue to be extremely popular among a certain niche of users, but it no longer drives the social experience the way it did in Spaces halcyon days.

  That said, I’m going to miss Spaces. It was one of the reasons I joined Windows Live in the first place.
  — Greg Edwards, United States; Windows Live MVP

• By choosing an established platform rather than attempting to develop their own, Microsoft has made a smart move, both financially and from the users’ standpoint.
  — Brian Donohue, Canada; Neowin.net

A good move, says the common opinion. Would you, on your turn, agree? What do you think?

To continue receiving security updates, it is recommended to upgrade to either Windows 7, or temporarily to Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Windows Vista Service Pack 2. With these service packs, your support will be maintained until April 2014.

You can find more information about this on the overview for ending support.

You want to subscribe to the Exploring Windows newsletter? Visit the Microsoft Newsletter Portal to get it for free, once a month.

Windows Live Events was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users in Windows Live Spaces to share and plan different types of Events happening around them while collaborating with other services such as Windows Live Calendar and Windows Live Spaces.

The service allowed users to plan and manage their own Events, add them to their Space, receive Alerts and integrate with other Windows Live services such as Calendar.

How-to: Backup your Events photos and videos

You still have some events photos, videos or similar documents you would like to retain? Please back them up before 31 May 2010. Here is how:

1. Open Windows Live Events.
2. Sign in with your Windows Live ID.
3. Open your events list.
4. Click one of your existing events in the list.
5. On the left, click a section, such as Photos.
6. Now browse the albums and download their contents using the More menu.

The webcam feature is only usable on both sides. The feature “Show my Webcam” is no longer available. If you now click the webcam icon next to your display picture, a Video Call will start directly. If the recent Messenger 2009 update (Build 8117) has not been installed yet, pending single-side webcam invitations will be rejected automatically server-side.

But I’m wondering: I haven’t installed nor received any update for Messenger yet, and still… will features of the new Messenger come to my PC silently this way?

Update: I’ve tested the Video Call feature and am thrilled about its picture quality. Though, one problem remains: you only can “cam” with one person at once. I assume this is something we have to get used to.

In June, Microsoft is going to release a Public Beta of Windows Live Essentials 2011 (Wave 4). Are you wondering what’s new? Read on.

Windows Live Photo Gallery will add Multitouch support on all devices running Windows 7. Furthermore, you don’t have to import photos and videos manually anymore — Windows 7 Libraries are fully supported.

When you know Office, you will feel comfortable with the user interface of Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, as they are using the same Ribbon technics. Photo Gallery can filter your images according to various criteria, like faces, names, or tags. Photo Gallery now includes a new face recognition system.

The Photo Fuse feature helps you to merge multiple images. Retouch and Batch Auto Adjust are two additional new features in Photo Gallery 2011. With Retouch you can make small adjustments and changes to photos, while Batch Auto Adjust helps you to enhance multiple images automatically, like adjusting their sharpness and color balance.

Movie Maker brings you a new feature called AutoMovie Themes. You can use it to add titles or sound tracks into videos or slideshows. Microsoft paid attention to make this feature as easy as possible to use, while retaining high-quality results.

Viewing and handling e-mail the way you want it is the central task for Windows Live Mail. With efficient inbox management tools, you can sort and mark messages in order to find them later on. Slim Cal lets you check your calendar without having to leave the Inbox mode.

Windows Live Sync gets better by taking advantage of the Live Framework Runtime. You can synchronize documents and folders on multiple computers. For syncing application settings across your computers, there is Program Settings Sync, enabling to you use the same custom program preferences on all devices you use.

Another new feature is the Remote Desktop functionality. When you do not turn off a Web-connected computer running Windows Live Essentials, you can access it over the Web via devices.live.com.

Amy Essene, Marketing Director for Windows Live, stated that in the past three years, more than 3 million US dollars have been gathered that could be distributed among the ten cooperating beneficent organisations.

Among others, Unicef, the Red Cross, animal rights organisations as well as the American AIDS foundation have taken part in the program. Users could participate by making use of special emoticons. Furthermore, money was given to organisations preventing breast cancer and supporting people with Multiple Sclerosis.

With its donations program, Microsoft wanted to achieve a marketing effect for its messaging and web mail services and at the same time help beneficent organisations. This way, part of the advertisement revenue gained by messages sent from the participating user was donated.

Since a few days, I have the newest Windows Live version, Build 14.0.8117.416. Since I have this version, I cannot start simple webcam transmissions anymore… only video call works. Is that how it works in the new version?? If yes, that’s a really stupid change! Or is the problem located on my end??

Questions like this keep increasing since an intermediate update for Windows Live Messenger 2009 has been published recently. What is it all about? When you want to send or view webcam in this upgraded version, you will launch a video call. This is a changed behavior, and people are quite confused about it.

Piero Sierra, Group Program Manager for Shared Data Experience, has posted the in-depth explanation why these changes to Messenger’s webcam functionality have been made:

There seems to be some confusion on the update to the webcam feature. Let me clarify that one-way video conversations are still very much supported. It is still absolutely possible to “share your video” with a relative abroad who does not have a video camera. Or see someone else’s webcam when you do not have one. Let me explain how you do this: Let’s say you do not have a video camera, and are chatting with a friend who does. In the chat window, click “Video” (or click the webcam icon next to your friend’s user tile). This will set up a one-way video call. You can then mute or unmute your audio by clicking the microphone. You can control your friend’s audio by clicking the speaker icon. Simple as that, and you still have the control. The inverse is also supported (where you have a webcam, and your friend does not).

Some background on what has changed:

In the past, we offered two choices to start a video conversation with someone. You could either click “Video Call” or select “Show my webcam.” Video Call is the full-featured option that includes two-way video and audio. It is how most people expect video calling to work. Show my webcam was a one-way feature, where you could show your webcam’s video to your friend, without audio. This caused a lot of confusion, and our data showed users would often click “Show my webcam”, only to be surprised they didn’t have audio, and couldn’t see their friend. They would then attempt to turn these on separately. Furthermore, the two features used a different video code-path which made switching between these scenarios hard, and also made it hard for the team to make quality & performance improvements to the scenario as a whole. In our latest update, we have simplified the command to just “Start Video Call”… If you have a webcam, but your friend does not, they will be able to see you and hear you, and you’ll be able hear them if they have a microphone. If you do not want to hear your friend, or do not want to share your audio, you can simply toggle the microphone icon next to your picture or the speaker icon next to your friend‘s picture. There are only really two aspects that are different: (1) it is no longer easy to hide your webcam’s feed if you have one enabled when you start a video call (you can still do this using the AV settings dialog). (2) You can no longer set up “webcam rings” with multiple people sharing silent video one-way. There are valid reasons to enable both of these scenarios, but their usage was very infrequent, and made both the user experience and the code overly complicated. This is why we have chosen to move forward with a simpler option. Please look for a post soon about our expanded video capabilities in Wave 4.

With these — amazingly explanatory, by the way! — thoughts in mind, can you now understand why webcam is working differently in Messenger from now on?

In the past two years, Microsoft has spent more energy in making Windows Live Hotmail even better. The result proves that these efforts were not in vain. But—what does “better” mean? What is important for a modern e-mail service in 2010 and beyond?

Security

With considerable amounts of spam and phishing mails flooding your inbox each day, it is important that you stay secure. Trusting your mail provider is of essential importance. Hotmail now checks every link that you click within e-mail messages. Even before they reach your inbox, mails are scanned for potentially harmful contents. This is done by the Microsoft Smartscreen filter. When a message is filtered, you will get informed of the reason. Mail from trustworthy senders displays an icon so you can recognize them at first glance.

With the new Hotmail, you will also be able to run your complete session SSL-encrypted. Sign-in is possible not only with user name and password, but also with single-use codes that are delivered e.g. to your cell phone. This increases your account safety in public places, such as airports or Internet cafés.

Easy usage

Hotmail Highlights inform you about your friends and their messages to you, about social news, events and birthdays. One-click filters allow you to scan your Inbox for relevant items, and new Quick Views display messages with attachments, videos or photos.

Removing unwanted mail is about to get easier. Have you ever been irritated by the bunch of messages delivered to you by Social Networks—“John Doe wants to connect with you”? When you are in need to find a certain mail, even newsletters can get into your way easily. With the Sweep feature, you can sort out such mails with a single click, and only your really important correspondence is left over.

Viewing messages in conversations is an good way to read even older messages sent by the same sender—with a simple mouse-over. Unlike the same functionality in Google Mail, in Hotmail you can turn this feature on and off as you need.

Focusing on mail contents

Often, messages you receive request that you take an action. For example, a friend may send you a link to a video on YouTube. Or, you want to take a look at the vacation photos in the Flickr album that your sister has just sent you. With Active Views, you can now watch the video or browse the photo album right from your inbox. Hotmail is also partnering with other companies and services like LinkedIn to provide an interactive experience, letting you take actions inside the email they send.

Access from anywhere

Reading and sending mail from your cell phone is getting simpler, too. If your phone supports Exchange ActiveSync, you can now sync your mail, calendar and contacts with your inbox on the Web. You don’t have to miss the rich functionality of Hotmail on your phone anymore, such as filters, previews, HTML views, reading messages offline, or show/hide message headers.

Integrating your Office

Microsoft Office 2010 is now integrated into Hotmail via SkyDrive, for free. This lets you view and edit Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notebooks and PowerPoint presentations. With versioning, you can access older versions of the same document, from the Web—wherever you are, anytime you want.

Hotmail—ready for the future

With these upcoming improvements in mind, my opinion about Hotmail is getting better gradually. I see that the Windows Live team has invested time to think about how e-mail is used these days. What do you think about the new Hotmail?

With Windows Live Messenger 2011, webcam conversations are going to change. Up to now, you could view your contact’s webcam or let others view it, without launching a full video call. This is going to change soon.

In Messenger 2011 (Wave 4), you will start a video call whenever you choose to view or send webcam. Furthermore, the compression codec used to compress webcam data has been changed. Users with a slow web connection will notice worse quality. As preparation for the new Messenger, an update for Messenger 2009 has recently been released (Wave 3 Build 14.0.8117).

Wave 4 aims to go forward. Does Messenger go forward with these changes, or is it rather a step backwards? What do you think?

Since 1:40PM (GMT+1), websites with a .de domain are not accessible. The name resolution will currently only work if your DNS server has a cached copy of the corresponding entries. Until now, there is no information as to when the problem will be resolved.

In total, all six DNS servers operated by Denic reply with wrong information. If you want to resolve a .de address with them, you will get a reply that there is no such entry.

Within the last minutes, numerours tweets about the problem have flodded the microblogging service Twitter. Servers of various providers have crashed because of the massive increase of requests.

Update: It seems that DENIC fixed the problem. Where the fault was? Stay tuned.

When talking about the next version of Windows Live Essentials, we talked about its code name “Wave 4,” or about “Windows Live 2010.” Now, Francisco Martín García, related to Microsoft Iberia, has pointed out that the new version is not going to be called “2010,” but Windows Live Essentials 2011.

Windows Live Essentials 2011 contains the following applications:

• Windows Live Messenger
• Windows Live Mail
• Windows Live Writer
• Windows Live Sync
• Windows Live Companion
• Windows Live Family Safety
• Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker
• Bing Bar

You can look forward to a public beta in June 2010. The final Essentials 2011 is going to ship at the end of August.