E-mail, photo programs stripped from Windows 7

Source

Microsoft has decided that Windows 7 won't include built-in programs for e-mail, photo editing, and movie making, as was done with Windows Vista, CNET News.com has learned.

The software maker included Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker as part of Vista, but later chose to offer separate downloadable Windows Live programs that essentially replaced those components with versions that could connect to online services from Microsoft and others.

Microsoft told CNET News late Monday that it has decided to remove those features entirely from Windows 7 and instead offer only the service-connected Windows Live versions as optional free downloads. Earlier on Monday, Microsoft had declined to say how it was handling things.

In a follow-up interview on Monday, Windows Live general manager Brian Hall said Microsoft made the decision to remove the tools from Windows for several reasons, including a desire to issue new operating system releases more quickly than it has in the past. The move also removes the confusion of offering and supporting two different programs that perform essentially similar functions.

"It makes it much cleaner," Hall said.

Lastly, he said, making the Windows Live tools completely separate from the operating system paves the way for Microsoft to work selectively with specific partners.

"We can do things with specific partners to enable really great experiences that might be hard in Windows," Hall said.

Antitrust rules make it hard for Microsoft to tie operating system features to specific services.

Microsoft last week rolled out the latest "Wave 3" releases of its Windows Live programs, adding Windows Live Movie Maker to the mix of programs, which includes Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Mail as well as blogging tool Windows Live Writer and instant messaging program Windows Live Messenger. While Windows XP and earlier releases had an instant messaging program built in, Microsoft took out that feature in Windows Vista.

Hall said it was too soon to say if the "Wave 4" release would precede Windows 7 or be coincident to it. Microsoft has said it will have Windows 7 on the market by January 2010, while CEO Steve Ballmer has said he is pushing for a release next year.

"We'll do Wave 3 and then we'll figure it out," Hall said.
It remains to be seen just how Microsoft will distribute the Windows Live programs in conjunction with Windows 7-based PCs.

Presumably the company could strike deals with computer makers or retailers to include the software, or links to download it.

Now we all know that like always Microsoft will be bashed by Linux & Mac camp saying "Windows 7 doesn't comes even with a Mail Client or Photo Manager out of the box" but here is the thing. Microsoft has so far been bombarded with comments of being Monopolistic & anti-competitive but with this move 3rd party developers will have nothing to say.

With Windows 7 all MS has to do is to give a link to Windows Live Services Home page to download all the stuff people need cos internet is everywhere. You can also download the full installer in a Cyber Cafe, bring it to home & install it.

Besides, updating Windows Live Photo Gallery is faster then updating Windows Photo Gallery (Example). The combination of Live Services & integration with Windows is the right thing Microsoft is doing. All your data is stored on your hard disk as well as the cloud.

Besides, for my use...Windows Live Mail Desktop was always better then Windows Mail & Windows Live Writer is much better then even MS Word only when it comes to blog posting.

C

gx_saurav said:
You can also download the full installer in a Cyber Cafe, bring it to home & install it unlike Linux.

What was the need to bring Linux into picture and force another OS war? :shock:

@Mods

If this thread turns into a war, please note this is the root cause and not Linux/FOSS supporters.

Note: The OP has edited his post after my comment on it. Thanks, GX for listening to me.

However, I will not remove my reply as the specific issue I mention here has occurred several times and needs to be noted by other members.

Come on yaar, we r grown up, we don't fight. Do we?

chandru.in said:
What was the need to bring Linux into picture and force another OS war?

@Mods

If this thread turns into a war, please note this is the root cause and not Linux/FOSS supporters.

Prevention is better than Cure!
good you spotted spark early before it could turn into flame and lead to flame wars

I will say it is good move

Shipping without the Email and photo management softwares is not a bad idea since MS also need to fight the antitrust issues in several countries. But users without a interent connection might suffer for not having the default programs already installed in a clean installation of Windows 7. MS may also add the live program installers in the installation media itself, like they added .NET framework installer into the Windows XP CD.

why do tehy want to integrate everything with thier online service which compared to thier competitors are really poor

Finally they took this step!! I am glad. I dont understand what is the purpose of having two software on my PC that perform the same function. I was wondering why Windows Live programs dont replace the older ones that come with Windows Vista during installation. Now it will much more cleaner.

The idea of carrying the installer offline on the Windows DVD is a good idea as people without internet can use it. And whenever they get online, the components can always be updated. Although, if its considered that Internet is available to most of the people using Windows, then it doesn't make that much sense. But ya, they should continue giving the offline installers. If i had to do a reinstall of Windows while i am on the move (i always keep my essential install disks with me) with a slow GPRS connection, i would not like to download the software online. I would rather prefer to install whatever version i have and use it and then update it later when full connectivity is available.

finally am glad...now if only they could entirely remove movie maker and photo viewer,all the rest of craps...
just giving barebones is enough for me.

x3060 said:
finally am glad...now if only they could entirely remove movie maker and photo viewer,all the rest of craps...
just giving barebones is enough for me.

Just giving the kernel without all those craps will be better naa ?

A

remove all the bundled crapware...make windows run fast and smooth...

^^so do you prefer monolith kernel...

I think the problem with windows is wierd, from my own experience. As you use it (under normal use), windows becomes more and more sluggish with time and its speed is affected by fragmentation. MS needs to do something about that, rather than just delay the inevitable.

R

Windows a new Virus in the making...

From what I think it will have the Live installer in it for people wanting to install the Live stuff. Not really sure if it will be shipped without all of this, it would be one edition like Win 7 Basic that won't have all this.

Even movie Maker won't be a part of Windows, it's gonna be the Live Movie Maker that will in all probability replace it.

^^ i think it is useless and probably kiddish to give live installer (setup). if this is the case then they should make it already installed. and even Microsoft is pissed of with its own varieties of Vista. so i think there will be hardly two versions of Win7.
ya i too believe tht Movie Maker wont be a part of it. Microsoft must have known by now that not everyday a regular user will make a movie of his own.

Maybe microsoft may consider giving them as addons on a seperate CD/DVD ?

jal_desai said:
^^ i think it is useless and probably kiddish to give live installer (setup). if this is the case then they should make it already installed. and even Microsoft is pissed of with its own varieties of Vista. so i think there will be hardly two versions of Win7.
ya i too believe tht Movie Maker wont be a part of it. Microsoft must have known by now that not everyday a regular user will make a movie of his own.

I would advice not to speculate anything as of now.

roshan1236a said:
Windows a new Virus in the making...

lolololol

I just wanna see that they live up to the 15s boot up and 2 min installation time

comp@ddict said:
lolololol

I just wanna see that they live up to the 15s boot up and 2 min installation time

Forget 2min install time - thats not happening unless you have a high speed Solid State Drive and and a SSD install media instead of optical media :lol:

And I doubt MS can ever offer 15s boot time, despite the fact that there are lots of Distros out there offering it.

Anyway, what they have decided to do is a good thing, it should be appreciated.

NucleusKore said:
Anyway, what they have decided to do is a good thing, it should be appreciated.

which decision are you talking about ?

To sell Windows as just an OS; we can then put in what we want. I do not fancy having Outlook Express when I can use Thunderbird just as well. This will reduce the bloat.

Abt removing E-mail pic programs^^^

Nice move MS*djforum.free.fr/smileysmileysmiley/v2/surprises/surprises.smileysmiley.com.54.gif

I'm not really sure how this move will go down with normal regular everyday users who are not members of any forums.

NucleusKore said:
To sell Windows as just an OS; we can then put in what we want. I do not fancy having Outlook Express when I can use Thunderbird just as well. This will reduce the bloat.

What do U mean by bloat??? Size on harddisk? Cos from what I see Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail desktop are quite slim & don't eat much RAM either,

gx_saurav said:
What do U mean by bloat??? Size on harddisk? Cos from what I see Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail desktop are quite slim & don't eat much RAM either,

I haven't used vista yet, but atleast in XP, I notice that lesser the installed apps, faster the speed. For some reason, using the OS for a few months tends to gradually slow the system speed too. Infact, a fresh install is much faster than a 6 months old install with some 20 extra apps installed and lots of updates done.

Keep to XP, rokcs, at least better than VISTA(personal Opinion)

iMav said:
I'm not really sure how this move will go down with normal regular everyday users who are not members of any forums.

What does forum membership got to do with this????

MetalheadGautham said:
I haven't used vista yet, but atleast in XP, I notice that lesser the installed apps, faster the speed. For some reason, using the OS for a few months tends to gradually slow the system speed too. Infact, a fresh install is much faster than a 6 months old install with some 20 extra apps installed and lots of updates done.

hmm....did u try using some maintenance applications like Tune UP Utilities ? Try it, I use them once a month & Vista is still as fast as first time.

ajaybc said:
What does forum membership got to do with this????

NoTW

It was used as a metaphor.

gx_saurav said:
hmm....did u try using some maintenance applications like Tune UP Utilities ? Try it, I use them once a month & Vista is still as fast as first time.

Well, I have a friend who runs this certain tuner software every week in order to keep his XP on 128 mb ram machine running, but I am still not sure if they are trustable

...

But the question is, WHY does it happen ? The root cause needs to be researched and eliminated by microsoft R&D team. THAT, of all things would make windows seem magically faster, not temporary solutions like stripping windows naked.

MetalheadGautham said:
Well, I have a friend who runs this certain tuner software every week in order to keep his XP on 128 mb ram machine running, but I am still not sure if they are trustable ...

Ok, this is his problem, he is trying to run Windows XP (I guess SP3) in the year 2008 with 128 MB RAM. Technology is dirt cheap these days, should I still need to tell U to help him upgrade the hardware.... Unless you have good hardware, forget about enjoying the OS & it's applications. Even latest linux distributions which U adore a lot don't recommend 128 MB RAM anymore.

But the question is, WHY does it happen ? The root cause needs to be researched and eliminated by microsoft R&D team. THAT, of all things would make windows seem magically faster, not temporary solutions like stripping windows naked.

It isn't only the fault of Windows. So far Microsoft made Windows as a platform on which 3rd party devs can make an app the way they want which results in a complex registry, lots of settings & temp files all over the places even when they shouldn't be & usual memory leaks in application. This all is changing with the new .net 3.0 based application programming Model & user permission for application unlike admin permission by default like that in case of Windows XP.

The condition of Windows will just get better as soon as all the developer follow some guidelines for developing & running apps of Windows

1) Make the installer as a Windows Install or .msi which makes sure that all the files written on the hard disk during installation are sorted out & noted down so that when removing, they can all be removed & any old file backed up will be copied again

2) Make all the applications running in User mode & not admin mode. This will solve lots of problems with Security

3) Make the application in .net solving many memory leak errors & security problems.

4) Follow Vista's UI & UX guidelines

5) All settings should be saved in the user's own folder only, & not cluttering the registry

6) Code efficiently by not using hacks in Windows, instead of using documented API.

See, no matter how much you praise cross platform novelty of QT & GTK, they are still not native to Windows. Same in Windows Vista where WPF apps run better then Winform apps written in VB or VC instead of C#. The problems is, developers make apps the way the way they want without taking into consideration Windows's recommended way. Why do u think applications like Windows Live Mail, messenger, Writer, Office 2007 work so well in Windows compared to any other applications.

The problem is not "not working". The problem is a "gradual decrease in performance over a few months". What can be done to avoid this, THATS the question I asked. Sure, apps might not run fast enough, but at the same time, thats fine as long as they run next month at the same speed as they run now.

I personally think it might be due to the fact that the registry ends up with lots of entries and the system takes time to go through the database, or that the page file is in a non continuous area or that there is excessive fragmentation and the NTFS file system does not have any way to nullify the performance drop due to fragmentation.

What can be done to avoid these issues ? The only thing I as a user can do is to create a separate partition for Page File use and not use it for anything else. (it has little effect if you have giant sized partitions, but if your windows partition is around 10GB only, and you often add and remove files from it, I think the performance difference will be huge). The rest is in microsoft's hands.

And yeah, about my friend, if the system could handle windows xp with 128mb ram in 2004 (not SP3), there is no reason the very same OS shouldn't run on the very same system. His needs are simple - internet and music. For games he has a PS2. So I seriously doubt he needs to upgrade...

ya i too believe that windows becomes sluggish and slower with the phase of time.but although a good move by the microsoft.

MetalheadGautham said:
The problem is not "not working". The problem is a "gradual decrease in performance over a few months".

That Windows XP of your friend will run fine even on 128 MB RAM but the applications he uses will not. Tell him to use same applications, same versions as of 2004 even today & they will run fast & fine.

With time, software add more & more features which demand RAM. It's not the OS only. Vista runs fine on 1 GB RAM here but to use the applications that I have, U need more RAM.

I personally think it might be due to the fact that the registry ends up with lots of entries and the system takes time to go through the database

Registry is actually better & faster then configuration files. Registry is machine code itself, & it is a shared database which .ini files are not. Third party apps do clutter registry because of which MS has always told the developers to make applications using the guidelines of Microsoft but lazy devs don't follow it always. For example, just have a look at Pictomio (using full WPF) a small software company making a fantastic product on MS guidelines & ACDSee, a big company still using the age old Win32 engine. U can't blame MS for registry slowdown, blame the devs who usually don't follow the MS route & end up cluttering the registry.

, or that the page file is in a non continuous area or that there is excessive fragmentation and the NTFS file system does not have any way to nullify the performance drop due to fragmentation

Fragmentation doesn't create a penelty on NTFS 5 performance in Vista compared to that in Windows XP. It is negligible at best in today's world of SATA 2.0 & SSD

The only thing I as a user can do is to create a separate partition for Page File use and not use it for anything else

.

Sure & benefit from 1% performance increse.

C

gx_saurav said:
For example, just have a look at Pictomio (using full WPF) a small software company making a fantastic product on MS guidelines & ACDSee, a big company still using the age old Win32 engine.

ACDSee has been in the market for a much longer time than WPF or Pictomio. I even remember using ACDSee on Windows 98 and ME. So they'd have a large existing code base in Win32. Just because some new UI engine has been released by MS doesn't mean all existing code bases have to be ported in a blink of eye.

Since, you have commented about GTK and Qt in one of your previous posts, I'd like to add that though GTK 2.0 has been out for quite a long time, certain legacy apps using GTK 1.0 run just fine on modern Gnome versions without affecting system perfomance in anyway (of course they do look out of place).

If MS has the guts to accept that Win32 was poorly designed and can hurt performance on modern systems, all apps using Win32 should run in a sandbox with restricted access to API calls which can mess with system performance. Just as 16-bit apps are run in NT series of Windows.

chandru.in said:
ACDSee has been in the market for a much longer time than WPF or Pictomio. I even remember using ACDSee on Windows 98 and ME. So they'd have a large existing code base in Win32.

ACDSee changed there codebase with ACDSee 4 which they are still using but it isn't sufficient for the future.

Just because some new UI engine has been released by MS doesn't mean all existing code bases have to be ported in a blink of eye.

Who told U WPF is just good for UI? If ACDSee switches to WPF & .net then lots of there work will be easier. .Net is easy compared to Win32 so porting won't be a problem, also they will get free GPU acceleration which is essential for them when working with Huge Megapixel pics & applying those filters etc in real time.

ACDSee will benefit the most by switching to WPF as they already have a loyal user base & have plethora of customisable features. Don't worry, ACDSee is soon coming with a Pure WPF based ACDSee suite. WPF was given to devs in 2005 with Visual Studio 2005 & at that time ACDSee 8 was in the market, now don't tell me it takes 3 years to make an application in WPF.

Since, you have commented about GTK and Qt in one of your previous posts, I'd like to add that though GTK 2.0 has been out for quite a long time, certain legacy apps using GTK 1.0 run just fine on modern Gnome versions without affecting system perfomance in anyway (of course they do look out of place).

Because it is native to X Window server of Linux but not Windows Enviroment. That's what I said. Why do u think WPF has a fallback software engine in case someone is using a WPF application in Windows XP, just to have compatibility cos it is not native to Windows XP.

If MS has the guts to accept that Win32 was poorly designed and can hurt performance on modern systems, all apps using Win32 should run in a sandbox with restricted access to API calls which can mess with system performance.

Win32 when came out wasn't bad. At that time GPU were not what they r today & not even the CPU were this powerful as today, time has changed now, WIn32 wasn't poorly designed, its just that today's computing world demands better things then Win32 which they now have in form of .Net. With this analogy shouldn't I also say that GNome should have the guts to admit that GTK1.0 was flawed & poorly designed due to which they relesed GTK 2.0

Good to see a nice Discussion going on without any flame wars

Hum achche loog hai

Ya DISCUSSION

*s269.photobucket.com/albums/jj44/visio159/Unismilies/11large.png