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Of course, I have been experiencing all the weird glitches with WLM lately.
It has always done strange things like place some incoming mail in my Drafts
folder, and refused Ctrl=C and Ctrl+V, and I figured WTF, it's beta. Is it
still beta? Now I have problems with composing using images and I hear I am
not alone. Lately, WLM started crashing when sending, losing all my work.
I figured that my version must be old, so I tried reinstalling, but got the
same version again -- 12.0.1606. Is that the latest? Others were
mentioning other versions.
I have never been able to figure out much of anything in Windows Live, and
although I confess that I have not given it much time, I had assumed that I
should not have to.
The problem is that, after starting down this road, and having faith that M$
would make it work, it does not, and the cost of moving away so is large,
due to the lack of compatibility with other mail stores.
Am I using the latest and greatest, or have I somehow gotten stuck in some
old version? If so, how do I get out of here.
If not, is there any hope this software will ever work the way people should
expect it to?
allen
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Hi, Allen.
Your confusion on WLMail versions is quite understandable - and it's not our
fault (yours or mine). The transition road Microsoft has taken from Outlook
Express to Windows Live Mail has been tortuous - and it's not over yet.
Short recap: As you probably know, OE won't run in Vista; it was replaced
by Windows Mail, which won't run in any Windows version before Vista. WM is
included in every copy of Vista, including those still on vendors' shelves,
waiting to be sold and installed on customers' computers. But Microsoft has
stopped all development on both OE and WM, even though they are still being
sold. For the past couple of years, MS has been developing the Windows Live
suite of programs, including WL Mail, WL Messenger, WL Writer, WL Calendar,
etc. Each of these Live components is in a different stage of beta testing.
I first joined the WLMail beta in May 2007, just as several products were
being renamed; that's when the word "desktop" was dropped from the name.
After a couple more beta builds, the "final" version was RTW (Released to
the Web) in November 2007. That RTW build is 12.0.1606, the one that you
used to post your last message. It is the latest official version and, as
you found, the one you would get today from get.live.com .
Build 1606 will run in both WinXP and Vista. When WLMail is installed, it
will seem to have deleted OE or WM, but it has only replaced the older
program as the default mail/news client and deleted the shortcut used to
launch the older app. You can still run OE (in WinXP) or WM (in Vista) by
recreating the shortcut or clicking on the .exe file. WLM will run side by
side with OE/WM and many of us ran both for a few weeks as we transitioned
to WLM.
Since 12.0.1606, development on the entire Live suite has continued and new
beta builds have appeared from time to time. The only Live product that I'm
interested in is WLMail, but it's hard to get just Mail without accepting
some of the other components. In September 2008, we got beta build
14.0.5027.0908 and used it until this month (December 2008) when we got the
current build 14.0.8050.1202.
The current package is labeled "Windows Live Essentials beta" and includes
the latest builds of all the components, including WLMail 1202. While still
beta, it is available to everyone. You can get your copy - free - at
http://download.live.com/?f=255&MSPPError=-2147197912 . You can,
theoretically at least, download just Mail, but you will be offered all 10
components. I'll let you decide for yourself whether to accept any of the
other Live components. Since I have plenty of disk space, I got them all,
but don't use the others.
In my opinion, RTW build 12.0.1606 is stable, but needs some of the
improvements in later builds. Build 0908 had some improvements but also had
several "regressions", which means that some things that worked in the RTW
no longer worked in 0908. Build 1202 is the best version so far, but there
are still a list of things that beta testers want to have fixed before it
"goes gold".
My recommendation is that you download the current WLM 14.0.8050.1202 from
Live Essentials beta and install it. It's still beta, but it is stable, and
it has more features and performs better than the year-old RTW version.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc[ at ]grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2009 1202 in Win7 x64 6801)
"allen" <NULL[ at ]NOTHING.COM> wrote in message
news:u83W0EuaJHA.556[ at ]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
[Quoted Text] > Of course, I have been experiencing all the weird glitches with WLM
> lately. It has always done strange things like place some incoming mail in
> my Drafts folder, and refused Ctrl=C and Ctrl+V, and I figured WTF, it's
> beta. Is it still beta? Now I have problems with composing using images
> and I hear I am not alone. Lately, WLM started crashing when sending,
> losing all my work.
>
> I figured that my version must be old, so I tried reinstalling, but got
> the same version again -- 12.0.1606. Is that the latest? Others were
> mentioning other versions.
>
> I have never been able to figure out much of anything in Windows Live, and
> although I confess that I have not given it much time, I had assumed that
> I should not have to.
>
> The problem is that, after starting down this road, and having faith that
> M$ would make it work, it does not, and the cost of moving away so is
> large, due to the lack of compatibility with other mail stores.
>
> Am I using the latest and greatest, or have I somehow gotten stuck in some
> old version? If so, how do I get out of here.
>
> If not, is there any hope this software will ever work the way people
> should expect it to?
>
> allen
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