The Windows 7 launch is a proud moment for us at Windows Live. Windows Live delivers the software and services that make your new, or upgraded, Windows 7 PC lots of fun. So, we want to remind you to get the latest and greatest of Windows Live for your new Windows 7 PC!

We recommend the following top things to do after installing Windows 7:

1. Personalize your PC: Make your Windows 7 PC your own by pinning your favorite programs to the enhanced Windows Taskbar, to easily preview and switch between Windows. Then, customize your desktop with one of the many new themes available in Windows 7 (or easily download a new one that suits your personality), and drag your favorite gadgets where you want them on your desktop.

2. Download Windows Live Essentials – the killer apps for Windows 7: Once you have Windows 7 installed, go to download.live.com to download free programs for email, IM, movie-making, photos and more! 

3. Organize your multiple email accounts in one place: Organize your multiple email accounts using Window Live Mail (including Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail Plus and Gmail) so you can receive email in one place, organized into separate folders. You can even add RSS feeds to stay up on your favorite sites and blogs.

4. Import and organize your photos: Your new operating system is a great excuse to finally organize the thousands of digital photos you’ve accumulated over the years. Windows Live Photo Gallery allows you to sort your photos easily by tags, folders or dates, then clean them up with easy editing features, including auto-fix, sharpen image, panoramic stitch, and more.

5. Make a movie in less than five minutes: Now that you have your favorite photo and video memories on your Windows 7 PC, make them into movies and slideshows that you can share on the web (including easy publishing to YouTube and Facebook) or burn onto a DVD in high definition (if your camera supports it). Windows Live Movie Maker features the simple-to-navigate Windows 7 ribbon, and time-saving features like AutoMovie that automatically turn your photos, videos and music into an impressive movie – complete with titles and transitions.

6. Snap to it! Need to compare two documents side-by-side? Snap, a new feature in Windows 7, is a quick (and fun) way to increase your productivity. Snap allows you to resize open windows simply by dragging them to the edges of your screen – left or right. Then, the window will expand vertically and fill the screen, so you can easily position windows side-by-side.

7. Shake away the clutter: Need to cut through a crowded desktop and quickly focus on a single window? With Windows 7, you can click a pane and give your mouse a shake. Voila! Every window except that one disappears. Jiggle again, and your Windows are back.

Have fun with Windows 7  :-)

- The Windows Live Team

Excited about the new Zune HD? We are! A built-in HD Radio receiver, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) multi-touch screen, Wi-Fi and an Internet browser… Zune HD is the first portable media player to provide all of these technologies on one device.  Oh, and by the way, did we mention that its less than 9 mm thick and only weighs 2.6 ounces!... :)

If you don’t already own one, check out http://www.zune.net for more details. If you do own one, then check out these new custom profiles for Windows Live Movie Maker. They let you save movies in a format that’s perfect for the Zune HD.

We also have a new “HD Fullscreen” (4:3 aspect ratio) profile that saves high-resolution (1440x1080) WMV video files. This new profile is ideal for making HD movies without letterboxing. This works great when you’re using photos in your movie that have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Note: When using the HD Full Screen profile, set your project to use a standard (4:3) aspect ratio to get the most out of this profile. (To set the project aspect ratio in Windows Live Movie Maker, on the View tab, click Aspect ratio, and then click Standard.)

At the end, we’ll provide a link to an article that explains how you can make your own custom profiles to use in Windows Live Movie Maker.

New Custom Profiles

We have two custom profiles for you that let you save movies in Movie Maker in a format that works great on the new Zune HD, as well as play from a Zune HD device to an HDTV at 720p resolution².

²Zune HD player screen shows supported 720p HD videos at 480 x 272—not HD resolution. HDTV and Zune HD AV Dock (all sold separately) are required to view video at 720p HD resolution.

The “Zune HD – Device” profile will create a WMV file with a resolution and bitrate that matches the playback characteristics of the Zune HD device (480x272).

Next, the “Zune HD - 720p High Definition” profile is optimized for playing back content directly from the Zune device via the Zune HD AV Dock. It uses a slightly higher bit-rate and more advanced Windows Media codecs (Windows Media Audio 10 Pro & Windows Media Video Advanced Profile) than the standard 720p profile built into Windows Live Movie Maker.

You can download and install these custom profiles (and the custom icon for the Zune profiles) by following these steps.

1. Download this compressed (ZIP) file: http://cid-2f7eb29b42641d59.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/NewProfiles.zip

2. Extract the files to a new folder on your computer. You will see the following files:

ZuneHDNative.prx

ZuneHDNative.ico

ZuneHD720p.prx

ZuneHD720p.ico

HD Fullscreen.prx

3. Copy these files to one of the following locations on your computer (depending on if your computer is running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows):

- 32-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\Video Profiles
- 64-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\Video Profiles

4. Restart Windows Live Movie Maker.

Creating Your Own Custom Profiles

If you want to make your own custom profiles to use in Windows Live Movie Maker, see the article Use custom settings to save a movie in Windows Live Movie Maker on the Windows website.

- Mike Morrison, Windows Live Movie Maker team

Windows Live Sync users,

We sincerely apologize for the extended period of downtime yesterday. We discovered a serious problem in Windows Live Sync that could cause problems in rare cases for people who used Windows Easy Transfer. As a precaution, at 9:15 Pacific Time (UTC-7) yesterday we decided to stop allowing people to sign in to Sync until we could fix the problem. Early this morning, we released an update to Sync and began allowing people to sign in again.

The next time you use your computers that are running Sync, you’ll be prompted to update the program. This is a required update and you won’t be able to connect until you install.

If your computer was already running Windows 7 before this update, you’ll have to go to the Sync website to add your computer back to all the folders you’re syncing. We know this is a hassle and we apologize for this inconvenience. You’ll also see that your computer shows up on the Sync website with a new name—you can safely go ahead and delete the old computer from the website. Rest assured that your files and folders are safe.

We found this problem in Sync through internal testing, and although it was very rare, keeping your data safe is our highest priority. We wanted to be absolutely sure that this problem wouldn’t happen to anyone.

Thanks,

Eric Doerr

Group Program Manager, Windows Live

On September 17^th, we announced the start of the Office web app technical preview. Today, we are excited to share the news that the Office web apps team has decided to expand the technical preview further, and they are inviting more people to try out the Office Web Apps. The preview is still limited to users in the US and Japan.

If you missed out on signing up for the technical preview earlier, this is a great chance to get in! Check out their announcement earlier today.

For a limited time, you can sign-up for a Technical Preview account here (if you are already a part of the technical preview, this link will generate an error): http://skydrive.live.com/acceptpreview.aspx/.documents?aobrp=browse

- The Windows Live team

Members of the Windows Live Writer team attended WordCamp Seattle on Sept 26, 2009. WordCamps are annual gatherings for learning about all things WordPress, hosted in various cities across the country. It’s a great way to learn more about WordPress and network with other WordPress users. The Writer team was there in force giving demos of Writer publishing to WordPress.  Many people aren’t aware of how well Live Writer works with WordPress. It gives users a completely WYSIWYG publishing experience and it makes publishing photos and video simple.

In preparation for the event, developer Brandon Turner created three new Live Writer plug-ins to use with WordPress blogs. These new plug-ins enable —comments management, custom fields, and blog title/tagline editor. If you are a blogger yourself, you might want to check these out.

Here is a quick overview of the plug-ins:

• The first plugin lets you change the title and tagline of your blog. Often times you have seen the default Just another Wordpress.com weblog. If you enter your Twitter username and click 'import from twitter' it will import a recent twitter status as your blog tagline. It will look for your most recent status that is not an @ reply and doesn't contain a link.

• The second plugin allows you to manage comments on your Wordpress blog from inside of Windows Live Writer. 'New' means that the comment has been posted but it is waiting for moderation. 'Approved' means the comment has been published and is visible to all users on your blog. 'Spam' are comments that have been detected as spam and are hidden from your blog. Clicking the words across the top will show you a list of comments in each of those sections.

• The, third plugin, called custom field plugin lets you add wordpress custom fields to your blog. This plugin shows up after you have clicked publish inside of Windows Live Writer. The first time you click publish once the plug in is installed it will ask you if you want to enable it. Click 'yes' when you see the dialog below.

Then the next dialog will show up. This will allow you to enter new custom fields for your blog. Enter the key/values for the custom field in the grid below. And when you are done you can close the dialog, it will save the custom fields to your blog. The next time you come back to this dialog, there will be links on the top with the keys you have entered in the past. This way, if you always insert the same custom fields, you will only have to enter them the first time. When selected on a custom field, you can click the checkbox. This will generate a snippet of PHP code which you can use in your Wordpress theme to display the custom field.

These plugins are available for use and further development (the linked DLL and Zip file contains all the new plug-ins)

Additionally there are many other Writer plugins available to do almost anything you can imagine.  Check out gallery.live.com for a list of free writer plugins.

Best,

Windows Live Writer team

Last month, due to a security issue in the photo upload tool, the Hotmail team temporarily removed it while building an updated version of the tool.  You may have already noticed this - the tool is back!

Instead of adding pictures as attachments to your Hotmail messages by clicking Attach and then File and then selecting the pictures you would like to include, Hotmail brings you a tool so you can more efficiently select and add multiple photos to a Hotmail message in Internet Explorer in a couple clicks: select Attach and then Photo.

Thanks for your patience,
The Windows Live Hotmail Team

We are aware that some customers may have experienced difficulty accessing their Windows Live Hotmail accounts today. We’re actively investigating the cause and have taken the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as quickly as possible.  Access has been restored to the majority of affected Window Live customers, and we expect access to any remaining affected accounts to be restored shortly. 

If you ever have trouble with your Hotmail account, please check the Windows Live Solution Center for help.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption this may have caused you.

- The Windows Live Hotmail team

Update, Oct 9, 2009: This outage has now been fully resolved. We apologize once again for the inconvenience caused by the outage yesterday.

As of 3pm PT: We want to provide a quick update, that as a result of our investigation we are taking measures to block access to all of the accounts that were exposed and have resources in place to help those users reclaim their accounts.

If you believe your information was documented on the illegal list, please fill out the following form to reclaim access to your account.

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Over the weekend Microsoft learned that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customers’ credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a likely phishing scheme. Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers. As part of that investigation, we determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts.

Phishing is an industry-wide problem and Microsoft is committed to helping consumers have a safe, secure and positive online experience. Our guidance to customers is to exercise extreme caution when opening unsolicited attachments and links from both known and unknown sources, and that they install and regularly update their anti-virus software.”  If you believe you’ve been a victim of a phishing scheme, it’s very important that you update your account information and change your password as soon as possible. More information on what to do is available on this page at our support community.

Microsoft recommends customers use the following protective security measures:

• Renew their passwords for Windows Live IDs every 90 days
• For administrators, make sure you approve and authenticate only users that you know and can verify credentials
• As phishing sites can also pose additional threats, please install and keep anti-virus software up to date

Answers to a few general questions about phishing scams

Q: What should you do if you fall victim to a phishing scam? How should you respond? What steps should you take?

A: If you think that you may have responded to a phishing scam with personal or financial information or entered this information into a fake website, you should take four key steps: (1) report the incident to the proper authorities, (2) change the passwords on all your online accounts, (3) review your credit reports and your bank and credit card statements, and (4) make sure you are using the latest technologies to help protect yourself from future scams.

1. For the first step:
   • If you have given out your credit card information, contact your credit company right away. The sooner a company knows your account may have been compromised, the easier it will be for them to help protect you.
   • Next, contact the company that you believe was forged. Remember to contact the organization directly, not through the e-mail message you received. Or call the organization's toll-free number and speak to a customer service representative. For Microsoft, call the PC Safety hotline at:
     1-866-PCSAFETY.
   • Then, report the incident to the proper authorities. Send an e-mail to spam@uce.gov to report it to the Federal Trade Commission and to reportphishing@antiphishing.org to report it to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
2. The second step is to change the passwords on all your online accounts. The reason for this is that a lot of people use the same password for multiple accounts. Start with passwords that are related to financial institutions or personal information. If you think someone has accessed your e-mail account, change your password immediately. If you’re using Hotmail, go to: http://account.live.com.
3. The third step is to review your bank and credit card statements and your credit report monthly for unexplained charges, inquiries or activity that you didn’t initiate.
4. Finally, make sure you use the latest products, such as anti-spam and anti-phishing capabilities in e-mail services, phishing filters in Web browsers and other services to help warn and protect you from online scams.

Q: How can I recognize an e-mail scam?

A: There are several signs you should look for to identify a phishing e-mail: (1) Does it ask you to send your personal information? (2) Is it poorly worded or does it have typos? (3) Does it contain convincing details about your personal information? (4) Does it use phrases like “verify your account” or “you’ve won the lottery?”

• Any e-mail asking for your name, birth date, social security number, e-mail username, e-mail password, or any other type of personal information, no matter who the e-mail appears to be from, is almost certainly a scam.  Microsoft and most other businesses do not send unsolicited e-mail requesting personal or financial information.
• E-mails that are poorly worded, have typos, or have phrases such as "this is not a joke" or "forward this message to your friends" are generally scam e-mails.
• Phishing mail often includes official-looking logos and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate Web sites, and it may include convincing details about your personal information that scammers found on your social networking pages.
• A few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is a phishing scam are:
  • "Verify your account."
  • "If you don't respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed."
  • "You have won the lottery.”

Q: What should people do if they think they have received a phishing e-mail?

A: If you think you may have received a phishing e-mail, you should take three steps: (1) take some time to check up on it and do not click on a link or give out your personal information, (2) make sure you have created a strong password for your account and (3) report the phishing scam.

• The most important thing to remember is do not click on the link or give out your personal information.  It is possible for your computer to become infected with malicious software simply by visiting a phishing site – without you even realizing it. If you receive a questionable e-mail, take some time and check up on the information. Often sites like snopes.com list common e-mail scams.  Go to that website of the company you received the e-mail from and contact their customer service reps via phone or online to verify the validity of the e-mail.
• Another thing you should do is create a strong password for your e-mail account by using more than 7 characters and having a combination of upper and lower case characters, numbers, and special characters, like the @ or # symbols. It's also a good idea to change your password on a regular basis. The next time you change your Hotmail password, you can check “make my password expire every 72 days” to remind you to change it.
• Finally, help us identify new scams. If you use Hotmail and received a phishing e-mail, you can select the dropdown next to "Junk,” and select "Report phishing scam.” Whatever you do, do not reply back to the sender. You should also report phishing scams to the Anti-Phishing Working Group by e-mailing them at reportphishing@antiphishing.org.

Q: How common is this scam?

A: The most recent version of Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report (Volume 6) shows that more than 97 percent of e-mail messages sent over the Internet are unwanted: They have malicious attachments, are phishing attacks, or are spam.

Q: Is Microsoft taking any proactive steps to prevent this from happening?

A: To help protect people from phishing attacks, Microsoft is providing education and guidance to customers, collaborating with other technology leaders, businesses and governments and supporting law enforcement actions against phishers.

• We provide guidance and information to customers about how to stay safe online at www.microsoft.com/protect and work with others in the industry and governments to educate people on online threats and safety tips.
• From a technology perspective, because so much phishing comes from spammers, our Hotmail spam filter, called SmartScreen, blocks over 4.5 billion unwanted e-mails per day by distinguishing between legitimate e-mail and spam.
• The Microsoft Phishing Filter, which is free as part of Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Windows Vista and as an add-on for the Windows Live Search Toolbar, also helps protect people from phishing attacks by identifying suspicious or confirmed phishing sites and warning customers before they reach them.
• Law enforcement also plays a big role here. Microsoft has supported 191 enforcement actions against phishers worldwide.  These include civil lawsuits filed by Microsoft, as well as civil and criminal actions by international government and law enforcement agencies for which Microsoft made referrals and subsequently provided support. 
• Microsoft is a founding member of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a cross-industry association focused on preventing phishing. Microsoft also actively participates in DigitalPhishNet, an alliance between law enforcement and industry leaders in a variety of sectors, including technology, banking, financial services, and online auctioneering.  The group is focused on assisting law enforcement in apprehending and prosecuting those responsible for committing crimes against consumers through phishing. 

Q: Shouldn’t Microsoft be doing more to protect people from phishing?

A:  Combating phishing requires involvement from technology leaders, businesses operating online, law enforcement and governments. Microsoft plays a leading role in the Anti-Phishing Working Group, provides technologies to protect people from phishing and assists law enforcement to bring prosecutions against online criminals.

For all those out there looking for an edge when using Movie Maker, here are some examples of more advanced features we’ve added to Movie Maker.

Today we’ll examine three areas of Movie Maker that should appeal to more advanced users:

1. Video Editing Keyboard Shortcuts

2. Leveraging Multiple Monitors

3. Creating Time-Lapse Videos

Video Editing Keyboard Shortcuts

Advanced users typically appreciate having keyboard shortcuts for most common actions and commands. In Windows Live Movie Maker we support all of the standard Windows and Office shortcut keys (i.e. Save, Open, Undo, Redo, Cut/Copy/Paste, etc…). You can find a list of all of our keyboard shortcuts here (or by choosing Help and searching on the word ‘keyboard’).

Today I would like to call attention to some keyboard shortcuts that apply more directly to video editing. First of all a quick one is the Play/Pause toggle (the ‘space’ bar or the ‘K’ key). Why the ‘K’ key? Well, commonly used shortcut keys in video editing programs include “J”, “K” and “L”. The “J” keys steps back one frame while the “L” key jumps forward one frame. Since the keyboard repeats you can hold down the “L” key and depending on the size of your video (and performance of your PC) you can get almost real-time playback. When using the “J” and “L” keys it’s convenient to use the “K” key to Play/Pause the video.

Next, another common action is to Trim the beginning or end of the video and Split a video. In Movie Maker these commands are based on the current cursor (caret) position. So you can scrub to a specific point in a video clip then press the “M” key to Split the video at exactly that point. The “I” key will trim off the beginning (from the caret position) and the “O” key will trim off the end of the video (from the caret position).

While we no longer have the timeline in Windows Live Movie Maker we now have a simple storyboard. The new Storyboard is approachable to the most novice user yet, it can still represent time visually! To zoom in (expand time) on the storyboard use the “+” key while the zoom out shortcut is the “-“ key (go figure…). You’ll note however that when we zoom in that the thumbnail representing the video clip is simply replicated.

Quick Access toolbar

Admittedly there are a lot of features exposed in the new “Scenic” ribbon that don’t have keyboard shortcuts. The good news though is that if you add those features to the Quick Access area of the Ribbon then you can use the keyboard shortcuts ALT-1 through ALT-0 to access those features!

To add a QAT (‘Quick Access Toolbar’ as we call it) shortcut, simply right-click on any button in the Ribbon and choose “Add to Quick Access Toolbar”:

It will then show up in the QAT and you can use the assigned “ALT” key to access it (press “ALT” to see what key is assigned to your new QAT entry).

Multiple Monitor Support

Since Windows seamlessly supports multiple monitors, we do too! This means that you can size the window for Windows Live Movie Maker across two separate monitors to get a nice, large Preview Window along with a large screen to use with the Storyboard:

Time-Lapse Videos

Enthusiasts come in all shapes, sizes, and ages! My kids, ages 11 and 14 love making movies and one of their favorite types of movies is a Time-Lapse. Here you take a lot of photos (either manually or via software that comes with you camera) and load them into Windows Live Movie Maker. Then simply set the photo duration to “.03” seconds for each photo (you can do that quickly by selecting all of the photos at once before changing the duration).

Here’s an example of my son Jade building an airplane from Lego’s. I set my camera up on a tripod and manually shot a picture of him every couple of minutes.

Another example video is posted here

We’re planning on the next wave now, we’ve heard your feedback on network and codec support – we’re looking to add more enthusiast oriented features as well! Please send us your ideas and features you would love to see.

- Mike Morrison, Windows Live Movie Maker Team

By now you’ve already seen how quick and easy it is to make and share a movie using Windows Live Movie Maker.  So instead of showing you how to post a video to an online service, I thought I’d discuss an alternative way of sharing your content using Movie Maker, Windows 7, and Xbox 360.  With so many great web services available to stay in touch and exchange media with friends and family, it’s easy to forget that sometimes the most enjoyable form of consuming your own content is to sit down with the people you care about and flip through an album or watch a home movie on the television.  But how do you get your Windows Live Movie Maker creation up on the big screen?  Well, you could always hook up a PC to your TV or burn a physical DVD, but let’s try something a little more “on-demand” than that.

I’m an avid climber and I love taking photos up in the mountains, but sometimes the grandeur of the scenery is lost when I show people my photos and videos on a laptop screen or share them through a web service. Instead, I’ll put my movie together in Movie Maker and display it on the TV by streaming through my Xbox 360.  This way, when I have friends and family over, we don’t all have to huddle around the computer screen – we can sit back with a snack and share the experience. 

Keep in mind, this post assumes a few things;

1. You’re running Windows 7 on your PC.

2. You have an Xbox.

3. You have a home network set up.

If you’re running Windows Vista, you should be able to accomplish the same result. Click here for information on streaming using Windows Vista. With that said, here’s how I do it on Windows 7.

First, I need to make a movie. I want to put together a slideshow combining photos and short video clips I took during the climb with an awesome soundtrack.  I’ll start in Windows Live Photo Gallery, where I can see all of my content.  I’ll select all of the photos and videos I want to use, click on the ‘Make’ button, then select ‘Make a movie…’ to launch Windows Live Movie Maker.  I’m going to use AutoMovie to quickly compile my content into a polished movie.  Then, I output my movie using our 1080p profile for maximum resolution and maximum viewing experience.  I save the movie to my local hard drive in a folder that is part of my Videos library.  I have this library set up so that its contents can be streamed to other devices on my home network.  Here’s how you can do this:

First, click the start button icon in the lower left of the toolbar. In the Windows 7 Start Menu search box, type “media streaming” as follows:

Launch ‘Media streaming options’ and you’ll see this:

Turn on media streaming, and you’ll get the following options:

Be sure to name your media library, which by default will be the name of your computer.  That’s all there is to it!  You can customize the settings if you like, but as is, anything in your Pictures, Videos, or Music Libraries will be visible to other media-streaming-capable machines on your network, including your Xbox 360.

Now that my movie has been saved and my media streaming options are set up, I turn on my Xbox 360.  Under the ‘My Xbox’ heading, I navigate to my ‘Video Library’ and select it.  At this point, I’m asked to select my source.  My Xbox sees my computer as a source and lists it as an option, so I’ll scroll down and select it.  Once I’ve done that, I can navigate by folder and find the movie I just created.

And that’s it, I can control playback straight through my Xbox and watch the movie with friends right in my family room.  The great thing about this is that you only have to set up media streaming once.  After that, anytime you save a movie on your computer, it will be visible to your Xbox so it’s ready to go whenever you want to watch it on your TV!

On a similar note, since we live in such a digitally connected world, I get my friends asking me to share my movies online so they can watch it again later.  Sharing to YouTube is always a great option, but what if there’s a different online website they regularly visit?  No problem – Windows Live Movie Maker shares the same online publishing platform as Windows Live Photo Gallery, which means developers can write publishing plug-ins to any website or service using our Software Developer Kit (SDK) and whatever SDK is available from that service.  Check out this page for a list of plug-ins that have already been written, and for more information on how to write your own plug-in using our SDK, visit http://dev.live.com/photogallery.  If you’ve written a plug-in, please tell us about it!

Thanks and happy streaming!

- Karthik Anbalagan