Christmas Tree

Earlier today I was assisting my mother in uploading some photos to Facebook.  Not only is it a rather painful process (even using the Photo Gallery plug-in as it never seems to remember your account), but she was rather perturbed when I pointed out that the images would be resized to an abysmally small size.

With that said I took some pictures of my Christmas Tree this year, signed into my Live ID using Photo Gallery, uploaded them to my SkyDrive account, opened up Writer here, clicked to add a Photo album and here it is:

View Full Album

Not only was it extremely convenient, but you get rich large images – you can even elect to keep them the original size but I thought that was a tad overkill.

Now the real question – why doesn’t Messenger support any of this rich integration?  How about linking people to my album in my personal message (yes I can copy/paste the link manually) or showing my albums in the display picture, backgrounds, or scenes selection windows?  It will show up in the what’s new feed, or my contact card, but that’s about it…

Christmas Candyhearts

This year I finally managed to bake up some Christmas Candyhearts you can send.  I think I made a pretty decent variety of things, including holly, star, candy cane, presents, tree, stocking, an angel and a snowman.   Also some unusual suspects like the Grinch, Rudolph, and a yummy Christmas cookie are available.

So if you’re looking for something to electrically send someone for the holidays, they come highly recommended (by yours truly)!

Music Mix activity not functional

Earlier this week it was pointed out to me that the Music Mix activity wasn’t working.  As of Saturday, December 20th, it is still not functional and does appear to be broken at Microsoft as opposed to something broken in Messenger (the client running on your PC) or on specific computers.

UPDATE (January 26/09): I’ve been checking this problem off and on since it was reported over a month ago and it seems that they’ve recently actually removed Music Mix from most locales’ "Activities" menus.  It does still appear if you have your Windows Live ID set to Australian however (there may be other locales too that I haven’t checked), and the activity is still broken as below.

If you want to try it, click the Activities button in the conversation window, choose Music Mix and have your contact accept the invitation.  If it is still not working, you’ll receive the “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” error:

 
What’s displayed here is actually debugging information for the server, not your local computer.  That said, you won’t find this mentioned App_Web_pywtlnzh.3.cs file on your own PC nor will uninstall/installing or other so-called “solutions”.  Additionally, it doesn’t matter which locale your Live ID is set to or what version you’re using, they all will fail with this message.

This post will be updated once the problem has been corrected. 

Installing/uninstalling Windows Live 2009 (Wave 3) applications

This is an old article and relates to a previous release of Windows Live 2009 applications. Although you can continue to download and use these older versions for the time being, it is recommended that you go to the updated article and download the latest version of the applications there.

This article supersedes the Installing/uninstalling Windows Live Wave 3 beta applications with the latest release versions of the Windows Live “Wave 3” 2009 products.   The Office Live Add-in and Silverlight have now entered the standard suite of applications.  Additionally, new components have been added into the suite, Live Sync services for Photo Gallery and the Toolbar, Direct 3D 9 runtime for Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, the Windows Live Upload Tool, and a junk mail filter update for Live Mail.

The Segoe UI Font, Microsoft Application Error Reporting (DW 2.0 Client), SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (SQL Server CE 3.1), and Windows Imaging Component Hotfix components have not changed since the beta release and do not need to be reinstalled if you are doing a manual install.

If you haven’t used these articles previously, this entry lists all Windows Live Suite 2009 “Wave 3” applications, a download link to the Microsoft Installer (MSI) file, what’s also necessary to install each application and a method to properly remove each without the Windows Live installer.  This allows you to install on non-supported Windows versions (Windows XP x64), fix broken Windows Live Installer installs or just to avoid the Live Installer altogether.

Note: A few of the packages come in both 32-bit and 64-bit varieties.  If you’re not sure if you are using a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system, you most likely have a 32-bit operating system and should use the 32-bit packages.  You can verify your operating system type using this article.

Windows Live Messenger
Version 2009: 14.0.8050.1202
Download installer – Messenger.msi
You will also need to install: Microsoft Application Error Reporting (32-bit) or Microsoft Application Error Reporting (64-bit), Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Windows Live Communications Platform, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Windows Live Call and Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Messenger, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {0AAA9C97-74D4-47CE-B089-0B147EF3553C}

You can also uninstall Messenger 2009 (even if the above isn’t working) by using my ZapMessenger utility.

Windows Live Mail
Version 2009: 14.0.8050.1202
Download Installer – Mail.msi
You will also need to install: Microsoft Application Error Reporting (32-bit) or Microsoft Application Error Reporting (64-bit), Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Windows Live Communications Platform, Junk Mail filter update, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Mail, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {63C1109E-D977-49ED-BCE3-D00D0BF187D6}

Windows Live Toolbar
Version: 14.00.8052.1208
Download Installer – wltinstall.msi
You will also need to install: Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Search Enhancement Pack, Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime, Microsoft Sync Framework Services, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Toolbar, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {2B4C7E1E-E446-4740-ADB5-9842E742EE8A}

Windows Live Photo Gallery
Version 2009: 14.0.8051.1204
Download Installer – PhotoLibrary.msi
You will also need to install: Windows Imaging Component (XP only), Windows Imaging Component Hotfix (32-bit) or Windows Imaging Component Hotfix (64-bit), SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (3.1), Microsoft Application Error Reporting (32-bit) or Microsoft Application Error Reporting (64-bit), Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Windows Live Communications Platform, Direct3D 9, Windows Live Sync, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Photo Gallery, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {F73A5B18-EB75-4B2C-B32D-9457576E2417}

Windows Live Movie Maker Beta
Version: 14.0.8051 (.1204)
Note that Movie Maker will only work on Vista.
Download Installer – MovieMaker.msi
You will also need to install: Windows Imaging Component (XP only), Windows Imaging Component Hotfix (32-bit) or Windows Imaging Component Hotfix (64-bit), SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (3.1), Microsoft Application Error Reporting (32-bit) or Microsoft Application Error Reporting (64-bit), Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Windows Live Communications Platform, Direct3D 9, Windows Live Sync, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista), Windows Live Photo Gallery
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Movie Maker Beta, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {2208D65A-1BF9-485E-A308-1BA6CADCDC1D}

Windows Live Writer
Version: 14.0.8050.1202
Download Installer – Writer.msi
You will also need to install: .NET Framework, Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)
To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Live Writer, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {6A92E5C5-0578-443D-91F3-92ECE5F2CAE2}

Windows Live Family Safety
Version: 14.0.8052.1208
Download Installer (32-bit) – fssclient_x86.msi
Download Installer (64-bit) – fssclient_amd64.msi
You will also need to install: Segoe UI Font (not necessary on Vista)
Optional secondary components: Installer Components (see later section)

To uninstall these secondary components, see Secondary Components below.
To uninstall Windows Live Family Safety (32-bit), click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {DC509FE5-1445-46C9-827C-6120429CB942}
To uninstall Windows Live Family Safety (64-bit), click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {48B0F24F-B828-4B1A-A22E-C65454B32A7A}

Microsoft Silverlight 2.0
Version: 2.0.31005.0
Download Installer – Silverlight2.0.exe
If you don’t already have Silverlight installed or have an earlier version, the normal setup will install this latest version of Silverlight.
You will also need to install: Nothing else
To uninstall Silverlight 2.0, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {89F4137D-6C26-4A84-BDB8-2E5A4BB71E00}

Microsoft Office Live Add-in 1.3
Version: 2.0.2313.0
Download Installer – OLConnector.msi
This is only offered to you in the normal setup if you have Office installed.
Adds Office Live Workspace functionality into the Office applications’ Open and Save functions. 
You will also need to install: Microsoft Office
To uninstall Office Live Add-In 1.3, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {57F0ED40-8F11-41AA-B926-4A66D0D1A9CC}

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector
Version: 12.0.6414.1000
Download Installer – olc.msi
This is only offered to you in the normal setup if you have Outlook installed. 
You will also need to install: Microsoft Office Outlook
To uninstall Office Outlook Connector, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {95120000-0120-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}

Installer Components
These components would normally be automatically installed no matter what product you selected.  Some provide some degree of value (like the Login Assistant) whereas others are completely useless if you are doing a manual install.  Naturally, if you are a doing a manual uninstall, you should remove all of these.  Additionally, no matter what selection you choose in the normal setup, your Windows Update within Windows will be registered with Microsoft Update.

Choice Guard
Download Installer – choiceguard.msi
Sets your user homepage and default search engine during setup (if you opt-in); this one is safe to remove
To uninstall Choice Guard, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {8FFC5648-FAF8-43A3-BC8F-42BA1E275C4E}

Windows Live Sign-in Assistant
Download Installer – wllogin.msi
Allows Windows Live web pages to synchronize with your client-side Live logins (like in Messenger); previous builds have been known to cause Internet Explorer to crash on exit and you may want to remove this if this is a problem for you
To uninstall Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {505DF7A3-88D5-4DD6-9AD5-C98C2ED0CEC4}

Windows Live Upload Tool
Download Installer – RichUpload.msi
The ActiveX control to upload files to your Windows Live SkyDrive.
To uninstall the Windows Live Upload Tool, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {205C6BDD-7B73-42DE-8505-9A093F35A238}

Windows Live Essentials Installer
Download Installer – WLXSuite.msi
The installer setup and UI for the Windows Live Installer
To uninstall Windows Live Installer, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {D9D754A1-EAC5-406C-A28B-C49B1E846711}

Segoe UI Font
Download Installer – SegoeFont.msi
Automatically installed normally if you don’t have the Segoe UI font already (included in Office 2007 and Windows Vista by default).  This component has not changed since the earlier beta version.
To uninstall the Segoe UI Font, click Start, then Run, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {A1F66FC9-11EE-4F2F-98C9-16F8D1E69FB7}

Secondary Components
As mentioned earlier, the majority of these applications now utilize shared additional components to work.  Here is a listing of each component, a download link, and how to uninstall each.  Be aware that some of these components are not limited to Windows Live products and removing them may affect other applications.

Microsoft Application Error Reporting
Download Installer (32-bit) – dw20shared.msi
Download Installer (64-bit) – dw20sharedamd64.msi
Installs Doctor Watson 2.0 application error reporting.  This component was known as DW 2.0 Client in the beta version and has not changed.
To uninstall Microsoft Application Error Reporting (32-bit), click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {95120000-00B9-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}
To uninstall Microsoft Application Error Reporting (64-bit), click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {95120000-00B9-0409-1000-0000000FF1CE}

Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime
Download Installer – crt.msi
Provides the runtime files required for software created with the latest Visual Studio, such as these Windows Live applications.
To uninstall Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {22B775E7-6C42-4FC5-8E10-9A5E3257BD94}

Direct3D 9
Download Installer – directx3d9setup.exe
Provides the latest version of Direct3D 9 for Photo Gallery/Movie Maker.

Windows Live Communications Platform
Download Installer – Contacts.msi
Windows Live Communications Platform required for Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker to access your Live Contacts.
To uninstall Windows Live Communications Platform, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {F69E83CF-B440-43F8-89E6-6EA80712109B}

Note: The Windows Live Communications Platform component has previously existed in the former beta version for Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker.  Unfortunately this component has changed significantly and requires all four products to be the same version to work with this new version of the Communications Platform.  Thus, you cannot “mix and match” with the beta versions and it’s all or nothing.  However ,other applications that don’t use the Communications Platform (like Live Writer) you can happily update to the new version while keeping your existing beta versions functional.

Windows Live Call
Download Installer – wlc.msi
Optional component, originally in the previous Messenger release, Live Call provides “PC to Phone” functionality using regional third-party providers.
To uninstall Windows Live Call, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {020D8396-D6D9-4B53-A9A1-83C47E2E27AA}

Windows Live Sync/Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime/Microsoft Sync Framework Services
Download Installer Windows Live Sync – WindowsLiveSync.msi
Download Installer Sync Framework Runtime – SyncNative.msi
Download Installer Sync Framework Services – ProviderServicesNative.msi
The necessary runtime files for Live Sync for the various applications.  In Photo Gallery, Live Sync is used to sync your photo gallery across multiple machines (see File menu, Setup gallery sync…).  In the Toolbar, Live Sync is used to automatically sync your browser favorites across multiple machines.
To uninstall Windows Live Sync, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {FDD810CA-D5E3-40E9-AB7B-36440B0D41EF}
To uninstall Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {8A74E887-8F0F-4017-AF53-CBA42211AAA5}
To uninstall Microsoft Sync Framework Services, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {BD64AF4A-8C80-4152-AD77-FCDDF05208AB}

Search Enhancement Pack
Download Installer – MicrosoftSearchEnhancementPack.msi
Extensions for the Live Toolbar’s Search Bar
To uninstall the Search Enhancement Pack, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {299CF645-48C7-4FA1-8BCD-5CE200CF180D}

Junk Mail filter update
Download Installer – SpamFilterData.msi
The latest Junk Mail filter for filtering spam in Windows Live Mail.
To uninstall Junk Mail filter update, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {4AB8B41B-3AF1-46BE-99B0-0ACD3B300C0A}

Windows Imaging Component (XP only)
Download XP Installer (32-bit) – wic_x86_enu.exe
Download XP Installer (64-bit) – wic_x64_enu.exe
The Windows Imaging Component (WIC) provides WIC-enabled applications to display and edit any image format for which a WIC-compliant codec is installed, and also to read and write metadata in image files.  In this case, Photo Gallery.

Windows Imaging Component Hotfix
Download XP Installer (32-bit) – WindowsXP-KB954708-x86-ENU.exe
Download Vista Installer (32-bit) – Windows6.0-KB954708-x86.msu
Download Vista Installer (64-bit) – Windows6.0-KB954708-x64.msu
Adds support for XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) to Windows Imaging; see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954708 for more info.  This component has not changed since the beta release.
To uninstall the Windows Imaging Component Hotfix, visit Add or Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) in the Control Panel, choose the option to show updates, then right-click and remove the update appended by KB954708.  Alternatively, execute pkgmgr /up:Package_for_KB954708~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.1.0 (32-bit) or pkgmgr /up:Package_for_KB954708~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.0.1.0 (64-bit).

SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
Download Installer – SQLServerCE31-EN.msi
Backend database for Photo Gallery & Movie Maker.  This component has not changed since the beta release.
To uninstall SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition, click Start, then Run if using XP, then type/paste the following and press Enter:
msiexec /x {F0B430D1-B6AA-473D-9B06-AA3DD01FD0B8}