Not a criticism per se, but when I saw the title of this post, I had a "Lisa Simpson Moment:" I know what each of these words means, but when you put them together...<p>Windows, Live, Essentials, 2011, Out.<p>I hope I get it now. <i>Windows</i> is the OS, Windows <i>Live</i> is not the OS but "The collective brand name for a set of services and software products from Microsoft", Windows Live <i>Essentials</i> is "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other Windows Live entities." and Windows Live Essentials <i>2011</i> is a release of Windows Live Essentials, so Windows Live Essentials 2011 <i>out</i> means that:<p><i>The 2011 release of "A suite of freeware applications by Microsoft which aims to offer integrated and bundled e-mail, instant messaging, photo-sharing, blog publishing, security services and other entities that are part of a set of services and software products from Microsoft that are branded to tie in with the OS" has been released.</i><p>The way that each word in "Windows Live Essentials 2011" segments the brand neatly from left to right makes it feel like it was designed by a marketing ontologist who sees everything as part of a great pyramid of brands and expects customers to view everything in the same way and not as individual products with their own identities.
Windows Live Photo Gallery is way more of an improvement than I was expecting. I'm pleasantly surprised.<p>I really wish Windows Live Mesh did incremental syncing but now that I'm syncing my OneNote notebooks to Office Live I'm less concerned.
Thanks for posting this, as much as I hate MS at times, I was starting to get frustrated with picasa and have been migrating my family to use live photo gallery lately.<p>UPDATE: I'm not liking how Live Photo Gallery won't let you create "albums" (like picasa) instead of requiring you to create folders/copy photos instead. Is iPhoto this way too?
I feel really bad knowing that from the level of polish WLE has, some poor souls working on it care and really want to feel good about their product, and are putting a lot of effort in.<p>I feel bad, you see, because as best I can tell WLE is a stillborn idea, and doomed to fail :(