My 2011 version of Live Writer didn’t seem to want to embed a Vimeo video, so I checked for an update and was surprised to see that a new version of Live Writer was released in August. I’ve always been happy with the product, so I decided to upgrade to see what was new.
It’s part of the Essentials pack. Starting the install gave me the option to only update Writer, not install the other stuff, though it did force me to replace Live Mesh (which I don’t use any more anyway) with Skydrive (which I don’t use right now either). Smooth upgrade other than a required reboot, presumably due to Skydrive.
I’d like to tell you about the new features of 2012, but I don’t see any. Didn’t see any obvious change at all. Searched some and found some worry that it might or might not be supported in Windows 8 (hard to imagine it wouldn’t run) and a post about Writer alternatives if you want to plan for the worst – though none seem to be quite as good.
Maybe there is something new I don’t see?
Writer is mature, has a decent plug-in architecture, works well, and is free. A lot of what makes it good is that it’s light and targeted, it’s not MS Word. I’ve wished at times for a grammar checker, but not much else. Maybe the right thing is to keep it in maintenance mode and not try to add features just to justify an upgrade.
Still,I can’t help but be annoyed.
