Do I Need Windows Live Essentials With Windows 10

Do You Need Windows Live Essentials?

Windows Live Essentials is a suite of free applications developed by Microsoft, which includes software for parental controls, email handling, cloud storage, instant messaging, video editing, photograph direction, blogging and more.

Essentials can be downloaded in ane annal package from the Windows Live Essentials website.

Simply are these tools really "essential" for all users? Read my description of each i beneath, and then you tin select which components to install, which to skip, and other alternatives to consider. Available components in Windows Alive Essentials include:

Windows Live Family Rubber: A parental controls program that includes Spider web site filtering, browser activity logging, "safe-search" filtering for Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines; time limits; game restrictions based on industry rating systems; contact management to forestall children from communicating with unknown parties online; and an image filter that blurs images which seem inappropriate.

Do You Need It? Probably not. Some parental control features are already nowadays in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Click First, Control Panel, User Accounts, then click "Ready Parental Controls" to see what'due south available. Yous can also find these monitoring, filtering and blocking options in your security suite (Norton, McAfee, etc.) or in products such every bit CyberSitter, NetNanny and CyberPatrol.

Windows Live Mail: The successor to Outlook Express and Windows Mail. This free email client works just with Windows Vista and Windows vii. Windows Live Mail supports non-Microsoft Webmail services; synchronization with Windows Live Contacts; RSS feeds; split inboxes for different POP accounts; a calendar office; and other modern features.

Do You Need It? No. Desktop email clients are so 1995. Spider web-based electronic mail services similar Gmail, Yahoo Mail service, and Hotmail brand information technology easy to get your email without being tied on one computer, operating arrangement, or hardware platform. They include contact management and calendaring features too. See my article Why You Should Dump Outlook and Windows Live Mail service for more details on why you lot should use webmail.

Windows Live Mesh: A synchronization application for Vista, Windows vii and Mac OS 10 10.5 or subsequently running on Intel platforms. Mesh allows synchronization of files between computers; sync with Microsoft'due south SkyDrive online storage service; remote access via the Windows Alive Devices Web service; computer-to-computer synchronization of Cyberspace Explorer and Microsoft Part settings.

Do You Need It? Probably not. I observe Microsoft'due south "cloud" offerings to be unnecessarily complicated. Something similar the free DropBox service lets you share and sync files online with a elementary drag and drop interface. Unless the browser and Office sync is of import to you, skip this one.

Windows Live Messenger: Formerly MSN Messenger, this Microsoft instant messaging client works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry Os, iOS, Coffee ME, S60 on Symbian OS nine.x and Zune Hard disk. It uses Micrsoft's .Internet Messenger Service.

Do Y'all Need Information technology? No. Exercise people actually all the same employ dedicatd instant messaging clients? They're built into Gmail, Skype, Facebook and many other pop apps. And with all the tweets and texts flight around, I'g gear up to declare this technology obsolete. (Oh, and can we please impale .Internet soon, likewise?)

Windows Live Movie Maker: A video cosmos/editing platform intended to replace Windows Movie Maker. Information technology is compatible with Vista and Windows seven. Windows Live Movie Maker is a slimmed-downwards video editor that eliminates many features that most consumers never use. It allows users to publish videos to Windows Live SkyDrive, Facebook, Youtube, and Flickr.

Do You Need Information technology? Yes, if you desire a basic video editor that's easy to use. Windows Live Movie Maker is a keen free alternative to some of the more than expensive and complicated offerings out at that place.

Windows Live Photo Gallery: A photograph management and sharing awarding. The latest version includes features such equally facial recognition, geotagging, batch people tagging, blemish remover and noise reduction.

Do You Need It? Maybe. Comparisons of Windows Alive Photo Gallery with Google's Picasa show that both are pop and full featured. Some notice one more intuitive than the other. I propose trying both and seeing which you like all-time.

Windows Live Writer: A desktop web log publishing organization. It is compatible with Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint blogs, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Telligent Customs, PBlogs.gr, JournalHome, the MetaWeblog API, the Movable Type API, Blogengine, Squarespace and other blogging platforms.

Do Yous Demand It? No. There are plenty of simple blogging platforms on the Web. See my article Five Gratuitous Blogging Tools to larn more than about Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, Tumblr and Posterous.

Silverlight: Still another Microsoft product created for the sole purpose of muddying the waters and trying to grab market share from established players. Silverlight is a tool that enables multimedia applications, and competes with Flash, Adobe Air, and the HTML5 standard.

Practice Y'all Need It? No. 2 years ago I wrote What Is Silverlight And Practice I Need It? It's been 2 years, and there accept simply been a few times when I was confronted with a website that said "Y'all must install Silverlight to view this content." Usually on Microsoft websites. I've resisted the urge, and I recommend y'all do the aforementioned.

In summary, in that location are a few bright spots in Microsoft's "Windows Live Essentials" packet. The Family Safe, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, and perhaps Mesh components are worth a await, if you don't already have a solution y'all like. I'd pass on all the others.

Your thoughts are welcome on this topic. Mail your comment or question below...

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Ezoic This article was posted by on 12 Oct 2011

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