14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is offering all the products in the Expression suite as free downloads. Microsoft Expression Blend, Expression Design Expression Media and Expression Web have all been made available as free trial versions. For a total of 60 days, users will be able to drive all the products under the Microsoft Expression brand. On June 21 2007, the download for Microsoft Expression Media Free Trial (Windows) version 1.0 went live.
Expression Media is designed as an asset management application. It will enable users to effortlessly catalog, organize and manage their digital resources, delivering support for a wide range of formats. Essentially, Expression Media will grout all your digital assets into visual databases called catalogs. "Imagine how much more you'd get done if you could just find what you're looking for. Expression Media makes digital asset management easy-just drag and drop to import more than 100 different media formats, including digital RAW files. Even when your originals are offline, Expression Media's visual catalogs allow you to browse, search, and annotate your assets," reads an excerpt of the product's presentation.
Microsoft has applauded the batch processing capabilities of Expression Media, highlighting the fact that users will be able to manage in excess of hundreds of files simultaneously with routine tasks such as renaming, converting, or tagging. Expression Media will keep track of your images, movies, sounds, fonts, and other media files along with any changes to the items or to the folders in which they are stored. Additionally, Microsoft is also offering the Expression Media User Guide, a complete manual to support the tool.
"After you buy and install any Expression program, you should immediately license your software to avoid future interruption of the programs. If you don't license them, the programs will stop running after 60 days or possibly sooner if you have used a trial product key. When you start any unlicensed Expression program, a dialog box may prompt you to enter your product key to license the program," revealed a member of the Expression team.