Microsoft Ties Windows Live Services to OS

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.'"

.Mac service

[OrangeTide (124937)]

Sounds like Apple's .Mac service, hasn't been too successful for Apple though.

Re:

[i_love_unix (1123543)]

But Mac users are neither nearly as ubiquitous nor as tied (real or imagined) to the OS as Windows users.

Re:.Mac service

[Secret Rabbit (914973)]

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.

THIS is what I call a complete OS

[dws90 (1063948)]

Not only does it contain IM, photo-sharing and other similar applications, but it also comes preinstalled with the funeral services for when the applications die.
Hopefully, they will release a Windows Live mortuary sometime soon to make the package even more complete.

Re:

[Karzz1 (306015)]

...Windows Live mortuary...

I just know there is an oxymoron there...

Re:THIS is what I call a complete OS

[Opportunist (166417)]

Yet another one to add to the list of political correctness, military intelligence and Microsoft Works.

windows live

[Ice Station Zebra (18124)]

or is it windows comatose?

Re:

[zeromorph (1009305)]

I think "persistent vegetative state" [wikipedia.org] is the word you are looking for.

Re:

[PPH (736903)]

Windows Undead.

Wrong

[bheer (633842)]

The problem with Internet Explorer was bundling with the Operating System (not that it was a technically bad thing to do).

In this case, it's a web download. Big deal. And it probably saves time for those who use all of MSN's services and needs to install/update them. Doesn't Google do this already with Google Pack (including the auto-update) ?

No! Buried in 4th from last paragraph

[by Anonymous Coward]

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

Move along.

A Public Service Announcement From Microsoft

[MightyMartian (840721)]

We at Microsoft are committed to improving the user experience by (I'm going to fucking kill Google....) encroaching our monopoly into every facet of computer usage (I'm going to fucking kill ISO...). The latest in our long-term plan to completely undermine the capacity for any other software company to influence you is our integration of our software update mechanism with our Windows Live Service (I'm going to fucking kill Sweden.... At Microsoft we believe that competition is more unhealthy than AIDS or swallowing plutonium, and we always seek to find new and inventive ways to completely fuck over any potential competitor. (I'm going to fucking kill Firefox... Another important strategy is planting our arrogant, brain-dead employees on such evil forums as Slashdot, to defend our market-crushing actions. (I'm going to fucking kill Richard Stallman...). We have already submitted the Department of Justice to our terrifying (and patented) Microsoft Bob Rays, which have rendered them simpering, inept and blind half-wits. (I'm going to fucking kill Ubuntu...). We at Microsoft value you, the consumer, for your deep level of mental retardation which allows you to continue funneling billions of dollars to us (I'm going to fucking kill Linus Torvalds...). Thank you for being perhaps the dumbest generation of idiots that the world has ever known (I'm going to fucking kill OpenOffice...).

Re:

[Jeek Elemental (976426)]

there are probably chairs in orbit after the iso vote

good choice of words

[kallisti (20737)]

"This new suite of applications is a new way that we can make connecting, communicating and sharing anywhere a terrific experience on your Windows PC"

When reading this quote, I couldn't help but be reminded that the root of the word "terrific" is terrify. Which makes it pretty accurate.

Re:

[Derek Loev (1050412)]

Actually, the root is terrere.

Not only IE, but MSN Messenger too

[vivaoporto (1064484)]

what the company did to make IE ubiquitous among Internet users

Not only IE, but MSN Messenger too. Before Microsoft tied MSN Messenger to Windows XP, as the infamous Windows Messenger, ICQ ruled the IM world, and Yahoo Messenger was gaining a lot of traction. Months later, and every newcomer was using MSN, because "that is what comes with the computer", and everybody else had to get an account too, in order to stay in touch. Have in mind that I only know Latin America and Europe, so that may differs in other parts of the world, but at least in Brasil and Portugal, "MSN" is a valid substitute for "Computer Instant Messaging", the same for "give me your MSN".

Depends on the region and age group

[tknd (979052)]

When I was in high school and college, AOL Instant Messenger was really popular. It was pretty much AIM or die. The first big thing was ICQ but had a ton of rough edges. You used to have to click or tab to the "send" button and the window would only show one message at a time rather than a log of messages. You were also given a number instead of an account name so it made it much harder to remember other's numbers or even your own. It did have some of the best off-line features though. With people outside

Re:Depends on the region and age group

[JediLow (831100)]

Heh, well... the number thing did work - I still remember my number from... 11 years ago.

Well in messenger's defense

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

It was a lot better than ICQ or AIM, which were the other big two. ICQ started really going down hill especially when spammers started to figure it out. I pretty much stopped using it in late 1998/early 1999. AIM is, well, AOL. While I've not doubt the packaging helped it, I think it was also that you were getting ICQ expats looking for something new that didn't bite. MSN may not have been perfect, but it was the best I found.

AOL in the US

[sentientbrendan (316150)]

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 [bigblueball.com]

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 tr

hmm.

[apodyopsis (1048476)]

It worked for them last time, and then only just. This time with most businesses staying away from Vista and many home users avoiding it because of compatibility issues, I think they sound slightly petulant and desperate.

However - the engineer in me reckons this is more about them wanting to support less platforms and trying to "get rid" (or obsolete) the older ones as fast as they possibly can.

oh well

[kwabbles (259554)]

wget http://download.microsoft.com/WLinstaller.exe [microsoft.com] ./WLinstaller.exe

err:module:import_dll Library WINHTTP.dll (which is needed by L"Z:\\home\\kwabbles\\Desktop\\WLinstaller.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"Z:\\home\\kwabbles\\Desktop\\WLinstaller.exe" failed, status c0000135

No worky. Oh well. Back to reading slashdot.

Not Vista ... to Windows

[Jim Hall (2985)]

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.

Re:Not Vista ... to Windows

[by Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not Vista ... to Windows

[ChatHuant (801522)]

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 [itworld.com])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.

Not unusual

[El Lobo (994537)]

It's not unusual, Tom Jones, that a company pushes web services to their current products. Apple does the same with the .Mac services. last time I checked, when you get a mac it comes ready to sign up to the .Mac services. And no, it won't work with OS9m it's ust tied to the latest OSX "whatever cat".

Google pushes for their gMail, gOffice (or whatever it's name is), just they don't "own" an Os (yet). When they do, besure as hell they will push and tie those service to it. Hell, I'm even tired of their too

Re:Not unusual

[Adambomb (118938)]

And which of your counter-examples has been convicted of being illegal monopolies?

Theres a difference between unethically leveraging a product and illegally leveraging a product.

Both suck, but both are completely different beasts.

How does this help Microsoft?

[stoicfaux (466273)]

I understand that making something easy to use makes it more likely to be used. But unless MS force feeds it to you when you boot or install Vista and XP, why would people choose Live over the more established brand names such as MySpace and YouTube?

MS would need a big marketing push to gain mind share, and I don't think an optional web install will do it.

Screwing up XP?

[Jabbrwokk (1015725)]

I sure hope this doesn't come as an auto-update, magically appearing on my XP machine one morning asking me to sign up for all these Live services I don't want. MSN Messenger is annoying enough, just deciding to be there one day after an update although I have tried to get rid of it many times.

Windows Live - obsolete

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

I've been using Hotmail since '99, before M$ bought them out. After that, Hotmail (like other M$ products) became slower and more bloated with every "update". Now they can't(or don't want to because of backroom deals) filter out junk mail which goes directly into my inbox because spammers are spoofing my own e-mail address( how irritating )! Then there's the constant "legit" M$ spam which gets into my inbox at least 3-4 times a week no matter what my filter settings are. Fuck that. My primary account is now a Gmail one.

Re:

[einhverfr (238914)]

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.

This /. entry is inaccurate...

[Giolon (1006069)]

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.

"in future", not "going forward"

[by Anonymous Coward]

Every time you say "going forward", an MBA gets to downsize a tech geek.

these tools are nice

[icepick72 (834363)]

From the perspective of using Windows Vista, I just installed the beta of this optional software, and it's very welcome providing a centralized desktop environment to manage my Live services. Makes life easier and faster. In the end isn't that what software should strive to do?

Re:

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

I'm one of the people (and there are many on Slashdot) that have been in the computer business since before there was a Microsoft, who have seen the incredible damage that company has done over the years, and who also hope to still be around after Microsoft's hegemony has run its course.

So is Microsoft an enemy? Depends: if I were a company trying to get into the operating system or office suite business I'd certainly have to contend with the barrier to entry posed by Microsoft. They aren't my personal e

Huh?

[Gavin Scott (15916)]

Sorry, I RTFA and it was the worst heap of rubbish I've read all day.

It's author seems to be utterly and completely clueless about everything mentioned.

There's not a single thing that justifies the word "tying" that I can see. Microsoft have some OPTIONAL add-on set of services that you can install if you feel like it. It's not mandatory and they're not saying it will be. It's no more "tied" to Windows than any other piece of software.

I think I'm going to start a blog where I too post nonsensical tech stories with headlines solely designed to push the buttons of reactionary Slashdot readers, then clean up on the Google ad income.

G.

And?

[nurb432 (527695)]

So a manufacturer ties their products together . what a suprise! This was never expected

Ford or GM doesn't do that, nor does GE.. Yep, this is really surprising.

Re:Another reason..

[RobertM1968 (951074)]

Actually, this is for Vista and XP from what the article seems to infer/state.

Regardless of what the other guy who responded to you said, Yeah, it is optional now... but it is also still in beta. Only time will tell whether this becomes another "Automatic Update" item... ah well...

The Slash-FUD rolls on....

[Jon.Laslow (809215)]

Common, people, actually go and look at what they are doing for a change. This isn't something that is being bundled with Windows (Vista or otherwise), it's a download, just like the Google Pack. You can still get the programs seperately, or you can use this new installer to pick and choose. This isn't something that will come in the form of an Automatic Update, because not only is it from different product group ("Windows Live... is branding and nothing more), but things like Live OneCare require a Paid Subscription past the trial period. Rant over. Karam down the drain. I'm just sick of seeing so much FUD on Slashdot, anti-Microsoft or otherwise. I know it's not going to stop, but can we at least calm it down a little?

Re:The Slash-FUD rolls on....

[RobertM1968 (951074)]

Puleeez! Stop, relax, then get a clue... there was no FUD involved in my speculation - just simple track record, and plenty of facts that I go into below.

MS has OFTEN tied their services together (MSN, IE, components of Office, etc). Almost every part of their new little package is something they are trying to tie to Vista.

It currently isn't part of "Automatic Update" - but it IS still beta. That it ISNT a part now, doesnt mean that it WONT be... kinda like the whole Messenger thing for a while. Oh wait, I thought you said they dont do things like that since it's a different product group. Just like how their original intention with other parts of Windows Live (from different product groups) was to tie them into Vista. And how they have filed patents to tie them all together - and into the OS - for the purpose of gathering demographics and other info on users of any of their products.

While my post was speculation; they've already filed patents that support it, they've already done similar things with products from other groups in the past (and antitrust pressure seemed to be the only thing slowing it), and the software can easily (as they mention) update the applicable components - of which, numerous are not subscription based (and some of those, like Passport used to be in order to use many services, can become required subscriptions).

Your only supporting speculations seems to be:

• This isn't something that is being bundled with Windows (Vista or otherwise), it's a download, just like the Google Pack. You can still get the programs seperately, or you can use this new installer to pick and choose. You probably meant "Until they change that... and after all it's a beta - and they better not be FORCING it on anyone at this point."?
• This isn't something that will come in the form of an Automatic Update, because not only is it from different product group ("Windows Live... is branding and nothing more), You probably meant "Oh, that's really irrelevant, what was I thinking? They've done that in the past with products from different groups - especially if it extends them into another area in a monopolistic way."
• but things like Live OneCare require a Paid Subscription past the trial period. You probably meant "Since the program updates and changes services that are installed, I dont know why I wrote this - it's a moot point"

Sorry, that's what I read in your post...

-Robert

Re:The Slash-FUD rolls on....

[RobertM1968 (951074)]

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

MS Advertising Patent [theregister.co.uk]

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.

Re:

[RobertM1968 (951074)]

Sure... they were one post up I think....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/18/microso f t_advertising_pc_patent/

Part of which state:

Microsoft has filed a patent (here) that threatens to breathe life into Bill Gates' and Ray Ozzie's Frankenstein-like Windows Live "vision", unveiled in November 2005, for putting annoying, in-your-face internet adverts inside your most important Windows applications.

Which references this Patent:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1 =PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO% 2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220070157227%22.P GNR.&OS=DN/20070157227&RS=DN/20070157227

The patent and the article go into more detail... but some neat parts are section 8 and 11 - as well as the

Re:

[marcello_dl (667940)]

Historically, when it comes to Microsoft, FUD is not the right term.

I'd go for FMT:

Fear, Materialization, Told you so.

Re:

[Jon.Laslow (809215)]

I think you may have hit the nail on the head when you say "updates". Remember, "Microsoft Update" has the ability to pull updates for other, already installed Microsoft apps, not just Windows. Chances are, your server pulled them because Microsoft made these updates available for already installed clients. Try actually doing those updates on a naked-install of Windows and see what happens. Then post screenshots!

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's one thing to be anti-competitive, but having to compete with yourself in order to not be a monopoly seems a bit stupid.

Re:Another reason..

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

having to compete with yourself in order to not be a monopoly seems a bit stupid.

It's actually the clearest evidence of Microsoft's monopoly we have.

In a competitive market, producers are forced to continually improve their products so customers will buy them in preference to anyone else's.

In the computer OS market, Microsoft is having to coerce people into "upgrading" to their newer versions because there's no improvements their customers actually want.

Wrong

[mpapet (761907)]

A monopoly, by itself, is nothing more...

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_maker [wikipedia.org]

A concise, widely accepted and universally taught analysis of why monopolies are bad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss [wikipedia.org] The deadweight loss is what you and I lose in dollars and units under Microsoft's market control.

The first is legal; the second is not.

Let's leave "legal" and "illegal" to the lawyers and increasingly the politicians who control the DOJ.

Please divorce yourself from these politically expedient

Re:Another reason..

[Ucklak (755284)]

IE used to be an 'optional' download - back when Netscape came in a box and was $49.95.

Re:Live Monopoly Reflex

[dpilot (134227)]

Well if they were "let off the hook" by the Feds, then clearly the original ruling was in error, and so was this article, for using that legally loaded work, "tying."

Conclusive evidence of more of that Linux-biased, Microsoft-hating Slashdot meme at work.

(tongue so far into my cheek that it hurts, on this one.)

Re:

[EraserMouseMan (847479)]

and they are definitely testing their boundaries constantly

Who wouldn't?

Who's just going to roll over and die? When somebody lable's you as a monopoly that means that you are an extremely agressive company and doing so well that everybody is scared of you. Why would a company in that situation just give up and let everybody take back their market share? I don't understand why people act surprised that MS would continue to constantly test their boundaries.