The hidden Gem – Windows Live Essentials

Over the break, I got the chance to look at some software and technologies which I do not typically have time to look at throughout the rest of the year. One thing that I played with was Windows Live Essentials.

It all started when my Uncle asked about whether there was a spam filter for Outlook express. I quickly told him there wasn’t one, but then said that Live Mail might be able to help. So pretty quickly I went to https://download.live.com/ and downloaded Live Mail and Live Messenger. The experience was pretty amazing.

Firstly when I first loaded up Live Mail, it detected that Outlook Express was already configured and easily migrated all the mail settings and files stores over to the new application. Secondly my Uncle soon found that the new application was so easy to use and understand. Finally, he was pretty much blown away when he got a “popup” from Messenger stating that he has received a new email, and when he clicked on it, instead of directing him to the Web Version (hotmail), it opened up the email in Live Mail.

Since then, the experience has been travelling like wildfire throughout my friends and family, and people just love the experience.

Clearly there are some things that they need to work on – I downloaded the Movie Maker Beta and clearly this is not feature complete yet, as you can not cut video segments before putting them together to make a movie. Lets hope for that soon.

All in all I am really impressed by the usability of the applications for casual PC users. I am not sure my days as a family support tech are over, but I feel that there will be some improvements in that area J