Windows Live Writer Experience

We couldn't get Windows Live Writer Beta (WLW) to install properly on the first number of runs at it.

Whether we were logged in as a domain admin, a user with local admin rights, or as a restricted user that had the install program elevated and the install would not finish.

The initial error was: There was a problem downloading this product.

Now, why would that be? In this case, we are trying to install the product onto a system that is on a SBS domain, with WSUS managing all updates.

In our wisdom, we don't normally approve updates such as the Windows Live Betas. So, it seemed to us that this may be the source of our problem.

We logged in to the SBS box, went into the WSUS 3.x MMC and approved the Beta updates required.

On the client, we then ran the following via Start-->Run--> wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow [Enter]

We then reran the product install and the downloads proceeded normally and the install completed successfully.

Once we were into the WLW and setup our Blogger profile, the first time we tried a test post, we received the following error upon clicking the Publish button:

Server Error 0 Occurred

java.lang.Exception: RPC handler object "blogger2" not found and no default handler registered

In the WLW Account properties we found that the provider was: Blogger (Legacy). So, the setup routine did not detect the new version of Blogger for some reason.

What we did to get the proper Provider "Blogger":

1. Tools
2. Edit the Blogger account
3. Update Account Configuration Button
4. Make sure the URL, Username, and Password are correct
5. Next
6. Detect Weblog Settings dialogue will run
7. Yes
8. Name the blog account
9. Finish.

Upon detecting the correct settings, we now have the correct Provider: Blogger.

The Test WLW Post 1 was flashed by in your RSS readers and gone! :D

Given that this product is in Beta, here is one very important suggestion to the WLW team: Please give us signatures that can be tailored to each blogging account we use in WLW.

Other than these hiccups to start out, this looks really neat!

Oh, and a caveat ... WLW will not install on Vista x64. :(

UPDATE: The picture did not publish properly when embedded via WLW for some reason. The links in the HTML code looked really different to any other embedded picture links in previous posts. WLW works pretty neat, but if pictures are going to be difficult, then it may not be used until they do embed properly. The image above was embedded again manually via the Blogger editor.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.