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Windows Live Services That Make Windows 7 Better (part 1)

11/27/2012 6:38:38 PM
Microsoft promotes its Windows Live offerings specifically as value-added services that enhance your Windows 7 experience with free, familiar, and secure ways to connect and share with others. Marketing baloney aside, there's some truth to this, though Microsoft's lengthy list of available Windows Live products and services—not to mention the products and services that fall under other Live services product families—makes it hard to keep them all straight.

In this section, we focus on a hand-picked list of Windows Live products and services that we believe truly do make Windows 7 better. You're free to pick and choose among them, of course, with one exception: Windows Live ID, which we discuss first, is the "glue" that binds together all of Microsoft's Live products and services, both to each other and, in Windows 7, to the PC desktop as well.

1. Tying It All Together: Windows Live ID

Why you want it: It's needed to access many other Windows Live products and services.

Type: Online service.

Though Microsoft doesn't explicitly market Windows Live ID, this important service sits at the middle of all of the company's Live products and services—including, yes, its Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace/Zune Social services. That's because Windows Live ID is Microsoft's central single sign-on service, and any Microsoft online product or service that requires a logon of some kind requires a Windows Live ID.

While the name Windows Live ID is unusual, you may be more familiar with the service's previous name, Passport. Microsoft dropped the name Passport when it changed to the Live branding it's now using, but the purpose is still the same. So, too, is the way in which you acquire a Windows Live ID: typically by signing up for a Microsoft online service, such as Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger, which requires a logon. However, you don't have to do it that way. In fact, if you know you're going to be interacting with various Windows Live (and other Microsoft Live) services going forward, you can simply sign up for a Windows Live ID first. Here's how you do it.

Simply navigate to home.live.com with Internet Explorer and click the Sign up button. Yes, you're free to use the browser of your choice, but we've found that Microsoft's online services still work best with the company's own browser, so it's best to step through the original sign-up process with IE instead of Firefox or whatever other browser you may use. You can use another browser to access the service after you're signed up.

Your Windows Live ID will be an e-mail address of some kind. Note that you are free to use an existing (non-Microsoft Live) e-mail address as your Windows Live ID (like paul@thurrott.com), or you can create a new Windows Live ID using one of Microsoft's domains (typically live.com or hotmail.com in the U.S., but you may see different domains offered in other locales).

NOTE

When you create a new Windows Live ID using Microsoft's domains, the company will also set up a free Windows Live Hotmail e-mail account for you (see the next section for details). This isn't the case when you use an existing e-mail address, where you're expected to use your existing service's e-mail facilities instead.

Creating a Windows Live ID involves stepping through a basic questionnaire like the one shown in Figure 1. You need to find a unique e-mail address if you're going with the Full Meal Deal, enter some information about yourself, and the like.

Because Windows Live Hotmail is one of the more popular services, we will assume you endured the lengthier process of creating a Windows Live ID using one of Microsoft's domains; but the process for adding a Windows Live ID to an existing e-mail account is similar, and simpler. During sign-up, you'll be asked to choose an e-mail address and password, and enter some basic account information.

Once the account is created, you are directed to Windows Live Account Services, where you will see that you are signed in to your new account. At that point you can access any of the Live services : when prompted to log on, do so with your newly created Windows Live ID.

Figure 1. The Windows Live ID sign-up process is pretty much standard fare.

2. Windows Live Home

Type: Online service.

Windows Live Home (home.live.com), shown in Figure 2, is a dynamic, living front end to your entire life. Okay, that may sound a bit dramatic, but if you configure this page to its full potential, it's hard not to be impressed by how useful it has become. And if you're looking for a single view into how impressive Microsoft's Live services are, look no further.

Microsoft describes Windows Live Home as a dashboard to your network of friends, and this curiously businesslike description is accurate enough. Here, you will find a useful aggregation of what's going on with you and your friends. You will see mail, calendar, and weather information as before, but in a more attractive guise. Favorite photos adorn the header. News headlines and other configurable feeds drive the right side of the display. But the centerpiece, really, is the What's New feed, driven by the activities you and your friends have configured, both within Windows Live and without. This feed lists all of the activities you and others are engaged in, providing a central location for, well, your entire life—again, if you've configured it correctly.

Figure 2. Windows Live Home can be a fine Web starting point, especially if you've invested time building out your Windows Live network.

3. Windows Live Profile

Why you want it: It provides a central location to manage your consolidated online persona, which consists of your Windows Live ID and any associated and shared information as well as an aggregation of numerous third-party services.

Type: Online service.

Where Windows Live Home is about viewing information about your Windows Live network—that is, those people with whom you have some sort of digital relationship, typically via Windows Live People—Windows Live Profile (profile.live.com), shown in Figure 3, provides the opposite end of this equation: It is the place you go to broadcast information about yourself to others. Here, you configure which information you'd like to publish about yourself and who you'd like to see it. You can edit all the typical profile information—name, picture, personal message, and the like—and invite people to join your network. On the surface, it's all pretty obvious stuff.

Figure 3. Windows Live Profile broadcasts your information to the world.

But the real power of Windows Live Profile lies in its ability to aggregate multiple Web activities—that is, things you're doing on other social networks, Web sites, and services—in a single place, creating an automated "What's New" feed that you can share with others. Microsoft reports that it has partnered with dozens of companies, linking your activities on services like Facebook, iLike, Twitter, WordPress, Yelp, and many others, as well as virtually any custom blog or service that exposes an RSS-type feed, into a single source of information.

So, say you are a Twitter user, a WordPress Blogger, and you upload photos to Windows Live Photos. Without Windows Live Profile, anytime you updated one of these things, you could only share those updates via those specific services. Now, you can share all three—and any number of other activities—via the single Windows Live "What's New" feed that aggregates virtually everything you're doing online. You set up each service from within Windows Live Profile just once and then you're good to go. From then on, everything you do is automatically added to that one What's New feed.

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