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Microsoft Ties Windows Live Services to OS

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the adoption-by-ramrod dept.

narramissic writes "Microsoft is tying its Windows Live services directly to Vista — a move that should sound vaguely familiar, as it is precisely what the company did to make IE ubiquitous among Internet users. 'A new unified installer for Windows Live services will help users download Wednesday's updates of photo-sharing, mail, instant messaging, online safety and other services, the company said on its Windows Live Wire blog. The new installer also will automatically update those services on Windows Vista and XP going forward.'"

13 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. No! Buried in 4th from last paragraph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Using the Windows Live unified installer also is still an option -- not a requirement

    Move along.

  2. Re:good choice of words by Derek+Loev · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, the root is terrere.

  3. Not Vista ... to Windows by Jim+Hall · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft is tying its Windows Live services directly to Vista -- a move that should sound vaguely familiar, as it is precisely what the company did to make IE ubiquitous among Internet users. 'A new unified installer for Windows Live services will help users download Wednesday's updates of photo-sharing, mail, instant messaging, online safety and other services, the company said on its Windows Live Wire blog. The new installer also will automatically update those services on Windows Vista and XP going forward.

    I hope I'm not misreading the article, but the summary appears to be incorrect. As I understand the article, Microsoft is integrating Windows Live more within Windows ... but I didn't see that it was being tied specifically to Vista. In fact, the article says "The new installer also will automatically update those services on Windows Vista and XP going forward."

    Call me confused, but I think Windows Live will still install on XP. You don't need to upgrade to Vista to run Windows Live, if you already have XP.

    1. Re:Not Vista ... to Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Microsoft is integrating various pieces of their software into one downloadable installer. The 'Live Suite' can be installed on both XP and Vista. Think of it as Microsoft's version of the 'Google Pack'.

      The title of this Slashdot thread is FUD.

    2. Re:Not Vista ... to Windows by ChatHuant · · Score: 3, Informative

      The title of this Slashdot thread is FUD.

      Much to my surprise, this time the FUDsters aren't the slashdotters; the FUD (including the title) is in the FA, which, probably being new here, I did read. The whole article (available here)is pretty much a lot of BS, but it sounded anti-MS enough that it was picked up and dumped on the first page by the crack team of /. editors.

  4. Re:Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Bzzzt!!!

    The problem with Internet Explorer was paying/leveraging the Microsoft OS monopoly to force OEM and other companies to not include/support Netscape.

  5. This /. entry is inaccurate... by Giolon · · Score: 2, Informative

    All MS has done is to package their various Live services into one installer that works on Vista or XP. They're not tying it to Vista in any way. I don't see what the big deal is.

  6. Re:Not only IE, but MSN Messenger too by benbean · · Score: 1, Informative

    Now I'm as UNIX-loving and MS-loathing as the next Slashdotter, but in the early days of IM clients when, as you point out, ICQ was king of the hill, I went with Microsoft's solution when stuck using Windows at work because it was the better solution. Microsoft Messenger was lean, clean and fast at a time when ICQ, Yahoo et al were getting uglier and bloatier and more and more difficult to figure out. I don't think it's success is all down to purely being bundled with Windows. It was gaining mindshare before it was bundled in XP.

    Having said that, I had cause to look at the current iteration of MSN Messenger Super Live Plus or whatever the hell they call it these days and I see that all that simplicity and cleanliness of interface went the fuck out the window. I quickly retreated to the safety of Adium and vowed never to look at it again.

    --
    It's a Unix system - I know this.
  7. Re:.Mac service by Secret+Rabbit · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's actually reverse of what you think. Apple launched .Mac and offered it as it sits today. Whereas M$ released the services and /afterward/ is now tying things in. So, they really aren't the same, business-wise that is i.e. no shady business practices from Apple this time 'round.

  8. Re:Windows Live - obsolete by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Informative

    I may have my facts wrong as far as when Hotmail were bought out.
    To be fair, Hotmail didn't start sucking until a few years ago.

  9. Re:Windows Live - obsolete by einhverfr · · Score: 2, Informative

    I thought MS bought Hotmail in 1997, but kept running it on FreeBSD until sometime in 2000 simply because nobody could figure out how to migrate that sort of environment over.

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  10. Re:The Slash-FUD rolls on.... by RobertM1968 · · Score: 4, Informative

    For the idiot mod who thinks the above post was trolling...

    MS Advertising Patent

    In order for this to work, MS needs to tie together all their diverse products from all their product groups... This was the patent that was previously discussed on /. that I was referring to.

    Please feel free to point me to where I am wrong...

    And no, I am not going to quote the specifics of the patent any farther than I have discussed them. If you don't have a clue about a topic, don't moderate it.

    --
    StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
  11. AOL in the US by sentientbrendan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Things like IM are all about what social group you are in.

    In the united states, AIM is still by far the most widely used chat protocol
    http://www.bigblueball.com/forums/general-other-im -news/34413-im-market-share.html

    AIM is actually pretty nifty if you don't try to use the new clients from AOL (which installs crap in the backgrount). Most people I know either have an old version of AIM (installers for every version are available online) or use third party clients like trillian, gaim/pidgin/adium.

    Google's trick of automatically signing you up for google talk and automatically adding your friends to your contact list will probably pay off in the long run though. I already sign onto both AIM and google talk on my pidgin client.