Windows Live Essentials wave 4 came out in beta last week, but I’ve just gotten it installed today. I’ve been toying around with it a bit, and I’d like to share some of my first impressions on the betas.

Windows Live Messenger

With the new Live Messenger, Microsoft’s introduced a social timeline to the client, which apparently can tie in to Facebook and MySpace. By default it’s tied into Live’s own social networking/profile system. I prefer the classic UI, which the new version retains (although it’ll give you the social view by default) but if I had more screen space, I’d probably make use of the new view. It’s actually pretty neat, and it’ll probably integrate more services as time goes on, making it more useful to people.

Windows Live Writer

With the new version of Windows Live Writer, we have ourselves a ribbon. That’s right, the much touted ribbon that was introduced in Office 2007 and refined in WordPad and Paint on Windows 7 shows up now in Live Essentials. As part of the UI change, the sidebar that once offered a list of things to insert into blog posts is no longer there. Instead, an Insert tab on the ribbon provides those same items, putting those provided by add-ons into a ribbon gallery.

Unfortunately, Zemanta (a blogging assistant that has been my favourite add-on for WLW) doesn’t work with the beta just yet, but hopefully that’ll change soon. However, fitting it in might be a bit of a hassle. Meanwhile, other add-ons that I’ve used in the past I haven’t installed on this system, so I can’t say whether they work or not. Here’s hoping that they do, however!

Windows Live Photo Gallery

Unfortunately, I haven’t much good to say about the new version of Live Photo Gallery. While the past versions were great for managing my pictures, the new version removed the tag trees from the left-hand navigation pane. And there appears to be no option to restore them.

It’s because of those tag trees that I bothered with WLPG in the first place. I have many, many images on this computer and others, and being able to organize them and navigate through them by tag made it easy and quick to find whatever picture I was looking for. The new ribbon makes it easy to find pictures based on who’s in them, but for general tags, it’s not so easy. Not only that, but managing the tags themselves has become much more of a hassle, now that the list of them is not easily accessible. The result is a lot of empty space in that navigation pane, and a worse user experience.

Sorry, Microsoft, but if the general and people tag trees aren’t restored in the RTW for wave 4, I’m dropping WLPG for something, anything, that actually provides me with real tag navigation. For me, this is a serious deal-breaker.

Windows Live Sync

Live Sync actually has a UI now, rather than just a login dialog and simple options dialog. Rather than simply provide a way of accessing all the files on your computer through a Live.com subdomain, it lets you synchronize particular folders with the cloud. However, all I’ve used Live Sync for is to access files on my desktop when I’m on the road – something that this version retains, so long as you enable it first.

However, accessing files is different now, through the Live Devices site. And if you’re not running the beta, your system doesn’t show up there. This can lead to a tricky configuration issue if you’re not running the beta on all your systems. You can still use the old Live Sync, but not concurrently with the wave 4 beta. It’s still there after you install the beta, but the beta Live Sync just won’t run at the same time as the older version. Pay attention to that fact if you’re using it for anything.

One thing to note as well about Live Devices – if you have a cell phone, you can have it show up on there, too. However, don’t expect to be able to do anything with it just yet, and certainly not if you’re running anything other than Windows Mobile 6.5 on it. Although even then, money’s out on whether it’ll only be useful for Windows Phone 7 anyway.

Bing Bar

I haven’t really played around with this, but if you’ve installed the beta and run Firefox, you’ve probably noticed your shiny new toolbar. That’s right, the replacement for the Windows Live Toolbar supports Firefox now. Given the fuss that Microsoft has gotten into in the past for adding plugins and extensions to Firefox, you’d think they’d avoid tossing it in without any mention. On the other hand, if you check that box to install it…

Personally, I preferred the old Live Toolbar, as it at least blended in better with the look of Internet Explorer. Whether you’re using IE or Firefox, the Bing Bar sticks out like a sore thumb, and while it may be just as useful as the Live Toolbar was, it feels a lot more annoying.

The Rest

There’s a Live Messenger social connector available now for Outlook Connector. If you’ve been using that to keep connected to LinkedIn, you’ll now find that Outlook will keep you connected to the social features in Live, too. Not played with that yet, but interested to see how it’ll turn out.

I don’t use Family Security, and never bother installing it. I don’t need it, so no opinion there.

Likewise, while I do install Live Movie Maker, I almost never use it other than to play around. I haven’t actually ever made anything with it. As for what wave 4 offers, I haven’t even launched it to see.

So that’s about it for my initial impressions. Very neat (but screen-wasting) social features in Live Messenger, nice new ribbon in Live Writer, a more useful Live Sync, a gaudy Bing Bar, and a disappointing Live Photo Gallery.