Windows Live Home is a discontinued

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayin ...

launched by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

as part of its

Windows Live Windows Live is a discontinued brand name for a set of web services and software products developed by Microsoft as part of its software-as-a-service platform. Chief components under the brand name included web services (all of which were exposed ...

services. It aimed to bring many of the Windows Live services together in one place, by providing a central location to access Windows Live services and monitor status information.

History

Windows Live Home was first revealed on August 3, 2007 at

Microsoft Japan (also known as MSKK) is a Japanese subsidiary of Microsoft headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. It develops both Computer hardware, hardware and software technologies for consumers and business partners. Microsoft Japan was founded in February 19 ...

's annual Business Strategic Meeting 2008. It was expected that a new version of Live.com (later

Windows Live Personalized Experience Windows Live Personalized Experience (also known as My.Live.com, previously Live.com) was a customizable portal launched by Microsoft in early November 2005. It was one of the first Windows Live services to launch. Features Live.com lets users a ...

, now defunct) would be released in Fall 2007, featuring a new interface design together with Windows Live service integrations. Microsoft later confirmed that Windows Live Home would not be a replacement for Live.com. Some of the early announced features for Windows Live Home included: *Providing access to emails and contacts through Hotmail *Showing upcoming calendar items from Windows Live Calendar *Allowing blog and photo publishing direct to Windows Live Spaces *Showing the status of Windows Live OneCare installed on the PC The final version of Windows Live Home was released on October 15, 2007. One notable feature of the first release of Windows Live Home was the ability to set the location of the user and display the current weather conditions for the city or region selected. The color of the homepage also automatically changed according to the time of the day. Windows Live Home was updated on December 2, 2008 as part of the overall Windows Live Wave 3 update. In April 2010, , the former address of Live Search, which had become

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

by then, started linking to Windows Live Home. The service was updated to "Wave 4" release on June 7, 2010. In 2012, Microsoft began to phase out the Windows Live brand, and introduced

Outlook.com Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It also provides a webmail interface accessible via web browser or mobile apps featuring mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and ...

as a future replacement for Hotmail. As Outlook.com sends users directly to their inbox when logging in, there is no equivalent of Windows Live Home. After the final Hotmail accounts were migrated to the new Outlook.com UI in May 2013, Windows Live Home ceased to exist.

Features

Windows Live Home integrated tightly with other Windows Live services, serving as the entry point to many other services. These services featured the following: *Ability to change the themes to be displayed on all Windows Live properties *View the "Messenger social" feed for people in the user's network *View recent activities for people in the user's network from Windows Live properties including

Windows Live Profile A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on personal user account for Microsoft customers to log in to consumer Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices runn ...

Windows Live Groups OneDrive Groups, formerly Windows Live Groups, was an online service by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live range of services that enabled users to create their social groups for sharing, discussion and coordination. Features The service allowe ...

, SkyDrive, Windows Live Photos, and

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as MSN), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a Cross-platform software, cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the now-di ...

*View recent activities for people in the user's network from a range of third-party Services, such as

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

, and

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

*View "

Hotmail Outlook.com, formerly Hotmail, is a free personal email service offered by Microsoft. It also provides a webmail interface accessible via web browser or mobile apps featuring mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and ...

highlights" information such as any unread messages, upcoming birthdays and

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

events, flagged messages, or unread social network updates *Update a user's personalized status message *View

MSN MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

headlines *View online Messenger contacts and chat with them using Web Messenger.

References

External links

*
Windows Live Home mobile version
{{Windows Live

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...

Internet properties disestablished in 2013 Defunct websites