14 DAY TRIAL // Almost a month since Windows Live Essentials 2011 hit the Release to Web (RTW) milestone, Microsoft is gearing up to deliver automatic upgrades for all users with Windows releases that support the latest major iteration of Windows Live Essentials. Windows Live Essentials 2011 will be served automatically to customers running Windows 7 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 in the next few weeks, through Microsoft Update.
According to Microsoft, some users of the two operating systems mentioned above have already started seeing Windows Live Essentials 2011 being delivered through Windows Update as of October 19th, 2010.
However, it is important to note that only Windows 7 and Vista SP2 customers that have enabled updating through the software giant’s Windows Update service will be served the upgrade automatically.
“Windows Live Essentials 2011 will be offered as a Recommended Update for users who have any of the Windows Live software products installed, otherwise it will be offered as an Optional Update,” a member of the MU team stated.
“If you have configured your computer to automatically download Recommended Updates then it will download automatically. After download is complete, WU will notify you of available updates, and you can start the upgrade. It will not install automatically.”
This is of course valid only for the latest two major releases of Windows. Just as it is the case for Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), Windows Live Essentials 2011 does not support Windows XP.
Users still running XP will not receive Windows Live Essentials 2011 upgrades automatically, and they will also not be able to manually download and install the suite of rich clients from the Redmond company.
“Windows Live Essentials 2011 will be offered through WU for Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2 computers,” the MU team member added.
“If you have not upgraded to Windows Vista Service Pack 2 then this would be a great time to take care of this task. "
“Please note that you may need to install other available updates and Service Packs for Windows Vista before WU will offer Service Pack 2 for installation. Windows Live Essentials 2011 cannot be installed on Windows XP computers.”
You can download the features of the Windows Live Essentials suite here:
Windows Live Family Safety
Windows Live Mesh
Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Live Movie Maker
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Writer
Windows Live Mail
The Bing Bar
Silverlight
Outlook Connector Pack