Windows Essentials, formerly known
as Windows Live Essentials, is a set of free applications that
Microsoft offers for download via an installer.
The Windows Essentials home page allows you to download a set of useful tools.
Windows Essentials includes the following downloadable applications:
• Mail. The Mail app contains functionality that you will find in the Mail, Calendar, and People apps.
• Messenger. Unlike
the tile-based Messenger app, the Desktop version offered in Essentials
is windowed and allows you to move back and forth between work and chat
sessions. That’s something you will appreciate.
• Movie Maker. Movie Maker is a video editor.
Its tools for editing audio and video, as well as the video
stabilization feature, allow you to create nearly professional-quality
movies. You can also add free background music to your movies. Movie
Maker may be the best part of the Windows Essentials package.
Movie Maker
• Photo Gallery. This application has much better photo acquisition features and photo editing capabilities than the tile-based Photos app.
• SkyDrive. SkyDrive
is Windows’ cloud-based storage service. With SkyDrive, you get an
Internet Explorer interface to your remote files, and you can access
your files from any connected PC.
• Writer. Writer is a blog writer. It’s a small, efficient, easy-to-use tool that also handles media, such as photos.
The Photos, Messenger,
and Mail apps that appear on the tile-based interface aren’t as
full-featured as the applications that are found in the Essentials
package. Movie Maker and Writer are applications that you will find
useful, but they do not have a tile-based app counterpart.
Family Safety is gone from the
Essentials package; it is now part of Windows 8 settings. Family Safety
allows you to control who can be connected to the Internet during what
times, and to place content and site restrictions on your family’s user
accounts. Also missing from this version of Essentials are the Bing
Bar, Outlook Connector (Outlook 2013), and Windows Live Mesh.
