So the new version of Windows Live Essentials dropped today and being the nice bunch of folks that they are they waited to flip the download switch until I got home from my monthly trip to Toronto. Needless to say the moment it did flip I headed over to grab a copy of Windows Live Essentials while it was still hot off the copy machine.

There is way too much in this package of free programs to cover in one post especially if you want to start delving into everything that is great about it but if you are looking for a great review I strongly suggest heading over to Brandon LeBlanc’s post – he does a great job. As with all things though not everything came up roses and there are a few of these sour notes in the programs I wanted to play with the most right away that I figured being the cranky old fart that I am I would write them up.

Windows Live Mail

First up is probably the most minor of things in Windows Live Mail but for some reason it really irritated me. In the previous version of Windows Live Mail (WLM) there was an option to minimize WLM to the notification tray and not have the program icon show in the taskbar. Well if that option still exists in the new release they’ve done a hellva job of hiding it because I looked and looked and I couldn’t find the option anywhere.

Yes this is really a minor thing but for someone who has gotten use to minimizing his email client to the notification bar since first using Windows Live Mail its absence is very irritating.

Windows Live Messenger

Let me say right off the bat that I love this new Messenger and plan on spending some real time using – which I’ll be sure to post about. That said there are two things right off the bat that had me scratching my head.

The first has to do with the available services that you can hook into the social interface of Messenger and boy is there a lot of them.

Except there is one service missing and besides Facebook it is the most important service – too important to be missing. Did you figure out which one?

Well I’ll save you the trouble of having to look – it’s missing Twitter.

That’s right, there is no Twitter service connector for Messenger and to me that is a really big mistake so I can only assume that the Windows Live Messenger team must have had some sort of problem for it to not be included.

Hopefully when they do manage to get Twitter working with Messenger it will support multiple Twitter accounts and look as good as the Facebook implementation in Messenger.

The other scratch my head thing that isn’t so much a deal killer as it is irritating is that you can add only one blog RSS feed. At least that is all I could seem to be able to do and if this is the case I really hope they change this so that we are able to add more of our blog feeds.

Windows Live Writer

As a blogger I might be a little biased but Windows Live Writer has to be one of the best programs that Microsoft has released, and it’s free. The only reason I stopped using it was because of the way it handles images and the uploading of them to your WordPress blog.

This image handling has become increasingly important as more and more themes have custom display of images which use WordPress templating tags and code to pull and place.

Windows Live Writer on the other hand has it’s own way for displaying images within posts and also a different uploading process and unfortunately the two don’t match up. So if you ever want to use a custom theme or code your own and deals with images in the post you pretty well have to go with the WordPress admin online editor.

I had really hoped that the new version of Windows Live Writer would have addressed this problem but unfortunately they haven’t so I’ll be continuing to use the online editor.

To be clear this isn’t a knock against Windows Live Writer and for the majority of bloggers this is still one of the best blog editors around.

Finishing up

This was just a first impressions post concerning the things that irritated me in the three main programs in Windows Live Essentials that I use the most. I will be taking a deeper look at them as well as the other programs that make up the suite.

Related posts:

1. A backup util for Windows Live apps on Windows 7
2. First look at Windows Live Messenger for the iPhone
3. WooHoo, one more sleep before Windows Live Essentials Beta is available
4. Windows Live Writer a dead man walking? Please say it ain’t so Microsoft.
5. Windows Live Writer – not such a dead man walking after all