The World According to Mitch

I have been blogging on WordPress for years, and before that I used a different platform… but it has been over a decade that I have been using Windows Live Writer to write my blog articles.  On occasion, I would write on the WordPress app on my phone or iPad, and sometimes even from the web console (www.wordpress.com).  For the most part, it has been Live Writer.

They stopped upgrading Live Writer (and the rest of the Windows Live Essentials suite) a few years ago – it never made it onto Windows 10.  As I wrote in 2015, it would still work, as long as you jumped through Microsoft’s hoops (See article).

Microsoft cut support completely on March 22, 2017.  According to the official page:

As of this morning, March 22, 2017,

Windows Essentials 2012 download offline installer (Microsoft site) is no longer available.

(March 21, 2017 was the last date the offline installer was available.)

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As this download is no longer available, further daily reports here on availability will cease.

The era is well and truly over, and I had not noticed it… Windows Live died quietly.

Fortunately, for those of us who saved the offline installer file (wlsetup-all.exe), it can still be installed, using the same instructions I wrote in the article in 2015.

If you do not have that file… well, I am sure that knowing the file name, you will be able to find a copy of it somewhere on the web.  I just want to remind you that files you get from untrusted sources will be just that… untrusted.  It is pirater beware, and yes… by downloading from untrusted sources, you are essentially pirating software (even though it was always free from Microsoft).

Before you ask, the answer is no… I have not yet moved onto a different blogging platform; I have not even looked into it.  I am just happy I tucked that old file into my Downloads directory whenever I last installed my Surface Pro 4… frankly, I only discovered the end-of-support when I reinstalled it recently.  I suppose I should look to see what else is out there, how I could make my blogging experience better.

Any suggestions?

R.I.P. Windows Live

Gone, not forgotten, and certainly missed.