I have been using Windows Live for a few days now and for the first time in a long time, Microsoft has impressed me with software. First off Windows Live is a suite that offers Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, Writer, IE Toolbar, and even a Family Safety tool program. When downloading you can pick and choose what you would like to download, I choose all but the toolbar and family safety. The installation process took less then 10 minutes to complete and unlike all other Windows software no reboot was required. The first program I checked out was Windows Live Photo Gallery.

For those of you that have read my previous post you should know that I liked the Vista Photo Gallery and was saddened when I had to roll back to XP and leave it behind and Windows Live Photo Gallery looks and performs just like its Vista counterpoint. The interface is clear and simple to understand. I prefer this to any other program is manage all of my photos and the "tags" feature makes it easy to search for a certain image or even video.

Also featured in the package is the Windows Live Mail and Messenger both simple to use programs. Once again I use Mail as my primary source for checking e-mail on my XP machine. I had no issues using my G-Mail, Yahoo, or my MSN e-mail account with this. This isn’t the most powerful e-mail program I have ever used but for it being free its hard not to recommend it.  With messenger you get what you see. Its not as useful as say iChat or Google Talk but its a joy to use. I hardly use it so I can’t go to deep into it but if you want to chat then there’s no reason not to use it that I can see.

Now onto my favorite program in a long time Windows Live Writer. This piece of software is a godsend to us bloggers, I am writing this on there. It is a great program is write a blog post and makes using HTML a thing of the past. Within the software you can post a Map, Picture, Table, Tags, or even videos and get a beautiful live preview on how it will appear on your site. This makes the guessing of what a post will look like disappear. Getting your blog on there is as simple as it gets. Just post the URL to your site and type in your username and password and it will connect your blog.

I believe that over time this suite can only get better while its not a direct threat to iLife its a nice suite that you will find yourself using over and over again. While I believe there should of been a movie making program included its hard to deny the greatness of the software that it comes with.

For the first time I am giving software a 5/5. Microsoft hit a home run with this, lets see if they can keep it.