DescentBB

Any downside to uninstalling this junk? I keep getting 2 sidebyside errors in the Error Log (searchhelper and Moviemaker are flagged) when the computer sits idle for a while, like when downloading something big. Both caused by WLE and it's searchhelper.dll, corrupted by some programmer who forgot to put in a couple of quotes somewhere (according to all the searches I've done). The errors are supposedly benign, but.... My only concern is that I do have a Live account for a couple of games and I'm worried that something will break if I ditch WLE. I don't need Moviemaker, Photo Gallery, Live Mail, Live Messenger, etc, etc.

Nuke em. The windows live game thing, which has changed names so many times I can't remember what they call it anymore is separate so it should be fine.

I gather Live Mail is something different from just signing into my Live Account from my browser? And 2 games forced me to create an XBox Live account as well, Bioshock 2 and GTA IV I believe, so the sign-in helper has to still work.

Live Mail is basically the Windows 7 replacement for Outlook Express. Meaning it is the POP/IMAP email client.

Great. Have you ever uninstalled WLE? It sounds like some people hare having difficulty getting rid of it, something about how nothing seems to happen when you hit the uninstall button.

IIRC the installer behaves the same way, it just takes a really long time to get going.

Live Messenger got retired a few months ago and replaced by Skype... and no, uninstalling it definitely doesn't remove your account. That's shared by quite a lot of different services and is, umm... actually quite difficult to close.

So, if you aren't using the individual programs, you might as well get rid of them.

Thanks Sirius. Is Live Messenger part of Live Essentials?

How about Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Sync Framework, both the Services Native and Runtime Native entries, Windows Live Sync (which I gather was later called Mesh and is now retired) and Windows Live Upload Tool? I'm in the mood to really decrapify my system.

Would Revo uninstaller be better to use than the control panel Krom? Someone also said to uninstall each item singly, then finally run the Windows Essentials uninstall.

Control panel uninstall should be good enough. Revo might catch more left over settings or registry keys, but stuff like that is harmless anyway.

Thanks. A purging I go.

Krom wrote:Live Mail is basically the Windows 7 replacement for Outlook Express. Meaning it is the POP/IMAP email client.

heh, I find that rather amusing as MS "formally" declared POP mail "dead" with Win 7. they killed the ability to import Hotmail via pop a while ago. You need to use their fancy new software. I said I didn't need to use hotmail that badly, especially after my account got hacked 3 times in a row.

The likes of GMail/Outlook are substantially more useful than POP if you have any need to access e-mail from more than one place... but POP does still exist, especially ISP-provided stuff I think...

I forget, does Hotmail still support IMAP access? That's probably a better option if you have a client that supports it (most do, I know Thunderbird did).

Fascinating. I broke something and it works better. After uninstalling all of WLE and Windows Live Sync, on a hunch, I left the Windows Live sign-in assistant alone and left the 2 WL ID services running. Why? Because I still have 2 games that are using Games for Windows Live on my hard drive, GTA IV and Bioshock 2. What broke was the automatic sign-in feature I had set for both games. It's always been a little creaky and slow, but now, all I have to do is just hit sign in and it works fine to play single player. I don't care about multiplayer.

LOL TC! You should work for microsoft! ^_^

What's probably going on is that some authentication process it was previously running is now quickly failing out. But if it works for you...

Duper wrote:LOL TC! You should work for microsoft! ^_^

Not likely. I'd probably nuke the place just for fun.

Foil wrote:What's probably going on is that some authentication process it was previously running is now quickly failing out. But if it works for you...

What's weird is that I can sign into GFWL just fine, even go to the marketplace, but when I go to load GTA IV, it's takes a loooooooong time now in the splash screen, so something's not happy. But I can save my game progress and play it OK, so I'm not going to mess with what success I have right now. Apparently, if I want to play multiplayer in GTA, I DO have to have some component of Windows Essentials installed or GFWL crashes. I'd like to know what component they need out of that mess called WLE. Stupid Microsoft.