Scott Hanselman

browse by category or date

Offline installer for Windows Live Essentials - WLSetup-All.exe

November 01, 2009 Comment on this post [20] Posted in Tools
Sponsored By

UPDATE 2015: Here is the offline link for Windows Live Essentials 2012.

Windows Live EssentialsMy brother and his wife came over today and the kids went trick or treating. His wife mentioned she wanted to make a quick DVD of the pictures and movies we took, so I suggested Movie Maker. However, they only have dial-up and wanted an offline installer I could just put on a USB Stick (I actually figured I'd put it on their camera's SD Card.)

I went to http://download.live.com and searched all over, looking for an offline installer. I Googled with Bing, and then Googled with Google for things like "Windows Live Offline Installer" and found nothing but confusion.

Then I figured out this bizarre bit of UI on the Live Essentials download page. Rather than offering a small link for "offline installer" or a choice, you have to click Download which will attempt to start a Download of Windows Live Essentials online bootstrapper. It will then go and download just the programs you want.

However, if you cancel the download immediately, there's a "Try Again" button and some text that no one (including me) reads:

"Trying again downloads a standalone installer to your computer. This takes a little while, but may work better, depending on your connection settings."

Um, OK. I wouldn't label that Try Again, but OK.

Long story short, here's direct downloads for the Windows Live Essentials English Language ONLINE and OFFLINE installers. They are current as of the writing of this blog post. I'm not sure if they are version-specific downloads but I will try to keep them up to date.

Or, if you want an offline installer in other languages, go to http://download.live.com, click Download, cancel it, then click Try Again. I think it's weird, but there you go.

 

Enjoy.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook twitter subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted in an Azure App Service
Comment on this post [20]
Share on Twitter or Facebook or use the
November 01, 2009 12:05
Hmm.. useful... I take it that ..it also comes with a selective install...even if it down loads everything right?
http://vivek-bluestar.blogspot.com/
November 01, 2009 15:48
I had a similar story with Adobe Flash player for FireFox: When FireFox updates, it checks that you have the latest version of Flash player installed, and since I hadn't, I was provided a link to install it. Clicking the link brought up a page from Adobe, and clicking install showed a FireFox dialog that Adobe was trying to install an "Adobe DLM". So first try, I let it go, and of course they had to include some McAffee crap that I didn't want. So I tried uninstalling both the DLM and the McAffee thing, but then, FireFox again said I didn't have the correct version of Flash player. So I went back to the site, clicked Cancel when it tried to install the DLM, and then clicked the "Direct Link" link. This downloaded an executable, that forced me to close FireFox, and only then was I able to install the Flash player properly.
Schmuli
November 01, 2009 16:15
Thanks for this, it's a really useful link to have especially since these are a set of tools that are very useful for or non geek friends and family who some of still don't have high speed Internet access.

I remember going back only a few years when you'd download a service back you had the option of downloading a bootstrap installer and an offline installer. In a case like this a return to the old way of doing things would be a step forward, two links one reading 'Download online installer' and the other reading 'Download for offline installation' would make our lives a lot easier. When designing a page like this the designer needs to realise that the visitor will filter out everything other than the word download, so any explanation text is just wasting space as most won't read it.
http://gangleri.myopenid.com/
November 01, 2009 17:43
Find & Save Windows Live Application Installation Setups in Windows 7 may also interest your readers
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/find-save-windows-live-application-installation-setups-in-windows-7

https://me.yahoo.com/a/UYQ5nkJoqOscNlTcybbEC.4.sX6ECxY38H0c
November 02, 2009 11:48
How Cool!
Can you next time blog about how to Google with Bing? I've always wanted to do that :-)
Jonathan van de Veen
November 02, 2009 23:03
ya , thats really cool how you google with Bing ?
sadegh
November 03, 2009 5:11
weird?

I think you missed the weird part altogether...... dialup???

the shame you must feel being related to them. :-)
Keith Nicholas
November 03, 2009 6:47
Very useful for on-site repair companies. Thanks!
Jusitn
November 03, 2009 9:45
This was most helpful.

You may recall I commented a few weeks back about problems installing Live on 64-bit systems. Solutions I'd seen involve using a 32-bit machine to run the web installer up to the point where the individual application installers have been unpacked, then cancel it. You must then identify the installers, named with GUIDs, and copy to the 64-bit machine to install.

I gave your download trick a try and sure enough, the full installer runs on 64-bit, so I could install Writer without any bother. Seemingly it's only the little web installer that is 64-bit phobic.
craniac
November 04, 2009 11:48
Hmm, this looks even sillier than I thought. Now I don't understand why MS is hiding this standalone installer: not everyone has unlimited 3G plans.
http://xentrax.livejournal.com/
November 04, 2009 21:15
I uninstalled the whole thing as soon as I saw the browser toolbar, without really looking at the rest of the utilities. Those seem spammy/scammy and inspire a pretty negative reaction, at least for me.
brianary
November 05, 2009 4:14
I just uncheck the toolbar.
Scott Hanselman
November 05, 2009 7:23
Fair enough. I only got it through Windows Update at the time, rather than installing it for a specific need, so it was a fairly extreme gag reflex.
brianary
November 10, 2009 12:52
thanks...... it works exactly how you told.
Shohag
November 18, 2009 19:18
A bit late, but I'm surprised the blog post doesn't mention that the Live Essentials download is on Windows Update (in the Optional section iirc) on Windows 7. I assume the WU version is the Online installer.
R. Bemrose
December 31, 2009 20:56
Thanks big time!! :-)
Bander Alsharfi
April 08, 2010 14:13
Many Thanks.
Linus
May 16, 2010 19:07
Thanx a bunch Microsoft has a way of doing this weird but hey that was a swell move.
CARLOS
June 12, 2010 14:10
Carlos: I agree with you (MS rating us IT pros as stupids), however I am not as forgiving as you. I spent couple of hours to find that damn full package, with no luck. Bing is a shame, not even able to find relevant content on download.microsoft.com, I have to google everytime I look for sg on MS sites...

There is no word for that, how badly I hate Microsoft for hiding details, deleting relevant information from the past, previous version of its own products etc. Technet articles used to contain much more details 10-15 years ago. Now, I have to hunt down Windows NT articles, beause the shiny new 2008 server R2 articles are just bullshit generated copy-pastes, all the basics are written only in 10 year old documents. And of course there is a good chance they will be deleted in any second. I just cannot mirror the whole document repository of MS. The same applies to Resource kits: you cannot download some win 2000 reskit tools, MS is carefully removing them from anywhere. But some tools found in NT or w2k reskit have no alternatives in the newer reskits. Yeah, you can watch the crappy whirling silverlight hourglass effect, it will take care of everything, dont worry stupido.

If you have read "1984" from Orwell, MS is doing exactly the same here: modify history. It is not paranoia, its clear evidence.
ricsip
June 12, 2010 14:13
Update: fortunately, the trick with cancelling the websetup, and retrying with the full package offered doesnt work anymore. Thanks for the direct link to the files, I wonder how long it will work, before MS removes this hole also.
ricsip

Comments are closed.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.