The latest suite of desktop applications under the banner of Windows Live Essentials 2011. This includes Windows Live Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Bing Bar, Family Safety, and the renamed (again) Windows Live Mesh.
While there is a number of changes I’ve already discussed in a previous post back in March when the beta first came out. There’s been some tweaks, but essentially the final release is the same product. The products have always been stable and a great improvements on the last version.
There is one gotcha and that’s supported OS’s. Unfortunately XP users are unable to upgrade to the new version and take advantage of the new features. There’s actually a decent reason for requiring Windows Vista or 7, that is that the new apps make use of technologies only available in later operating systems. XP users should understand they are using a very old operating system and with that comes draw backs, not being able to use the latest software is one of them. While not being able to get essentials 2011 may not be enough motivation to upgrade, know that going forward, only more and more software will drop support for XP.
If your an existing Live Essentials 2011 beta user just run the installer and any existing apps will be updated to the full release.
Available from http://get.live.com
