Get session and website visit reports right from the Family Safety website-you don't have to log on to your child's PC. Just follow a few easy steps to get started, and then choose settings for each child's web access.įamily Safety enhances the standard Parental Controls in Windows, adding remote management that you can use to change your child's permissions online.
If you already have Windows user accounts for your kids, you're most of the way there. Family Safety can help keep an eye on things. Even set time periods when they can use the computer. Choose the websites, games, and programs they can access. Use activity reports to monitor your kids' computer activity. The kids are online and you're busy-Family Safety is there to help. To turn conversation view on or off in Mail, click the View tab, click Conversations, and then click On or Off. By default, only those people you send the photo email message to will be able to see your pictures. Click Format, and then click Album privacy to decide who can see your photos. Type the email addresses of the people you want to share your photos with. Choose the photos you want to add to your email message, and then type a name for your album. In your Windows Live Mail inbox, on the Home tab, click Photo email. Since the photos are stored on Windows Live SkyDrive, nobody's inbox gets overloaded.
They can then easily find, view, and download your photos. Send high-resolution photos to family and friends with Windows Live Mail. If you want to add more accounts, click Add another email account. Type your email address, password, and display name, and then click Next. In your Mail inbox, click Accounts and then click Email. Once your email accounts have been added, organize your conversations. It's as easy as typing in an email address and password, and then following a few steps. You can add all your email accounts to Windows Live Mail. With SkyDrive installed on all your computers, you'll have automatic access to the latest version of your files wherever you are. Then publish them to any of your favorite blog service providers. Manage multiple email accounts, calendars, and your contacts, even when you're offline.Ĭreate stunning blog posts in minutes, with photos, videos, maps, and more. Get them all at once, or choose just the ones you want. Windows Essentials is a suite of products available in one easy download.
Doing away with Windows Live is a necessary step.So much for free in one simple download, including Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Messenger. I’m not sure if we’re entering a golden age of Microsoft branding - Windows RT still strikes me as a pretty oblique product name - but the company does seem to be trying to streamline things. The inessential Essentials were just stragglers. It long ago did away with the most bizarre examples, such as Windows Live Search (now Bing) and Windows Live Hotmail (now just Hotmail). In retrospect, it feels like Microsoft started readying Windows Live for retirement shortly after it introduced the concept. But doesn’t the fact that Microsoft unbundled these tools from Windows prove that they’re not essential? Bonus annoyance: Microsoft’s decision to identify these downloadable freebies under the Windows Live rubric (which usually applies to Web services) makes it even harder to define just what Windows Live means. They would live on, but as free downloads known collectively (along with other apps such as Windows Live Writer) as Windows Live Essentials. In September 2008, Microsoft announced that it was stripping three of Windows Vista’s applets - Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker - out of Windows 7. The company is effectively leaving behind the Windows Live brand name as it renames the products that currently feature that two-word phrase.īack in 2009, when I rounded up the 10 Worst Microsoft Product Names of All Time, Windows Live Essentials was on this list: Windows Live Essentials turned out to be less than essential after all. And the list went on: Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Search, Windows Live Toolbar, Windows Live Family Safety, Windows Live Writer and others. Windows Live Mesh provided file synchronization among one’s personal computers, including Macs.
Windows Live Essentials, for example, was the name for a suite of software products that could be installed on a PC and included photo management, video editing and instant messaging. Follow New York Times’ Randall Stross is taking note of what seems to be the final, official end to one of Microsoft’s oddest exercises in branding, Windows Live:Īn array of products, with no natural connections to one another, have received the Windows Live moniker.