So as many have no doubt heard it looks like Microsoft are planning to remove Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Windows Mail from Windows codename "7".

Instead what will be expected is for people to use the Windows Live suite of applications, which now includes Movie Maker (a much stripped down Movie Maker in its current form), as well as a e-mail application which can tie in with Hotmail (which the built in Windows one never could) and a photo gallery application.

I've got a few concerns with this, firstly does this mean Windows won't come with an e-mail client? Or, will the current build of Windows Live be included on the Windows disc and refreshed with service pack releases?

I understand the reasons for Microsoft reducing the duplication from having an OS e-mail client and a Windows Live one and so on, but when you're talking about removing things we've expected an operating system to have for the last 15 years you need to look at what you're doing from an end user perspective, and for the average end user that will mean being confused and not being able to find their e-mail program.

There are some advantages, such as more frequent updates. The Windows team are largely tied into the Windows release schedule, the Windows Live team have their own schedule so updates can be rolled out more rapidly.

But, to date I have not replaced any of the built in programs such as Windows Mail or Photo Gallery with their Live alternatives on my system. I have Live Photo Gallery installed, but I only use it for when I want to use one of the specific features I need, such as panoramic stitching.

This is because it looks different to the regular version of Photo Gallery, the Wave 2 release had a bright blue UI, and had its layout changed around a bit. The result was an application that did not blend in well with the rest of the Windows Vista, resulting in me continuing to use the regular Photo Gallery as the default. Not only that but Live Photo Gallery wanted to change the generic image icons to something other than the default system ones. There are few things more annoying, and confusing to end users than having the icons for things change. Such behavior is overly invasive.

If Microsoft are going through with this plan, they need to ensure the applications blend in well with the system, and that they don't tinker with things like icons in newer releases. If I can sit down at a Windows "7" system, and after a few releases of the Live suite not be able to spot any differences in the look and feel of an application - maybe they could get away with it. The Windows Live applications must not look like a crappy add-on bolted on the side of Windows, it must look and feel like Windows itself.

Lastly, advertising. Microsoft should come out and say that they will not feature advertising in any future versions of Live Photo Gallery, or Windows Live Mail, or the others. Unless the end user is making use of services with a back end in the cloud, namely Hotmail, Messenger etc. I pay good money for Windows, I don't want future versions to feature advertising in components that have historically been included with Windows.

Hopefully we'll have these concerns addressed at the PDC later this month.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 2, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has won a key distribution deal with HP, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, to install a Live Search-enabled toolbar on all HP consumer PCs planned to ship in the United States and Canada, beginning in January 2009. As part of this deal, the default search engine setting in the browser on all HP consumer PCs will also be set to Microsoft Live Search.

OK, fair enough. Microsoft give HP money, HP put Microsoft's toolbar on their computers and set the default search engine to Live Search.

Paul Thurrott however asks us:

[I]s this ironic? Hypocritical? Or just pathetic?

I think its all three.

OK, sure he's got a point. Computer manufacturers should stop bundling junkware with computers, and yes Microsoft employees have hinted that they're not too pleased with how much junk is installed, and that it is damaging the user's feelings towards Windows, despite not being anything to do with Microsoft or Windows. Obviously they can't stop computer manufacturers from doing this, especially with their past legal record.

To solve this, you need a customer revolt. So the money that the computer manufacturers get out of these deals isn't worth the damage done to their sales from bundling all this junk. The trouble is for Joe Public, there's no way to tell before hand, and if there is the junkware is sold as a feature (without mentioning the negative side-effects) as such market forces don't act against the problem. So despite technology enthusiasts going on about it for years, no progress is being made.

If Microsoft hadn't done this deal what would be on the computer instead? The Yahoo or Google Toolbar, with their search engines as the default.

End result? No change for the end user on the amount of junk installed on the computer.

In short, I think it stinks. The Windows Live Search toolbar—like Windows Live Search itself--should succeed or fail on its own.

I think Google should be allowed to succeed or fail on its own. We all know its not going to happen because Google start throwing money at computer manufacturers to install their junkware, when was the last time anybody brought a computer that wasn't covered in Google junkware, or had the browser search set to Google?

Microsoft shareholders aren't going to be happy if the company just sits back and watch as every computer sold has Google's search engine on it, its called business. It isn't nice, but its all we've got (for now).

Windows Live Writer was released this week, with new versions of all the Windows Live applications.  I've been following it in beta for over a year.  However all my attempts at using it with b2evolution have not been successful enough to use it for my general blogging.

Metaweblog seems to be the most stable API, using Wordpress, Blogger etc, don't even bring up the full list of categories to post to.  Metaweblog has some shortfallings, like not being able to delete or edit posts which makes it much less usable than it would otherwise be, it also disables comments, which means I have to go to the web based editor to turn them back on per post, I don't expect anything too fancy like image uploading - that can be worked around quite easily as most client side blogging tools can upload images over FTP to a web site.

Hopefully b2evolution's support will improve, it has remained stagnant for too long in this area.  These client side applications are becoming more popular, there are literally dozens of different ones now, and even Word 2007 can post directly to blogs.  It is something that should be given a high priority to keep b2evolution competitive with other blog engines.

Update: I'm pleased to say Windows Live Writer works great with the 2.4-RC2 version of b2evolution.

So I opened up Windows Update, the first time in a few weeks and what's happened?

I assume this was due to the new Windows Live Unified Installer. Simplifying the categories into say:

• Windows Vista
• Windows Live
• Windows Ultimate Extras

Would I am sure be much better. Instead of having each Windows Live application listed under their own category, which kinda defeats the purpose of having categories.

Windows Live Folder has turned into Windows Live SkyDrive.

Improvement over previous name: 130%. It's nice to see some teams are starting to be a bit more creative with their names.