Windows Live Applications with Server 2003 and/or x64

If you are one of many who have tried installing the Windows Live applications (Messenger, Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery, etc.) using the WLInstaller.exe file on Windows Server 2003 or perhaps a 64-bit version of windows which I have no personal experience with, you will have probably gotten the following error message:

“Sorry, Windows Live programs cannot be installed on Windows Server, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or Windows operating systems earlier than Windows XP Service Pack 2.”

or

“Windows Live programs can’t be installed on this operating system”

It is not that Windows Live programs “cannot be installed,” it is just that the folks at Microsoft who decreed such a thing made a stupid move. That’s surprising… Apparently, there is not sufficient application testing on these “unsupported” operating systems, and so they decided not to release it for them period.

Feel free to skip down to the uploaded MSI set up files if you do not want to know the knitty gritties.

On a “compatible” XP SP2 machine, WLInstaller.exe smacks relevant set up files and logs in

C:\Program Files\Common Files\WindowsLiveIntaller\MsiSources

NOTE: WindowsLiveInstaller was (sneakily) made a “protected operating system [folder]” so you would need to change this under Folder Options…View, Show Hidden Files and Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”

Finally, browse over to the MsiSources folder and voila.

I am surprised there is not more accessibility to these set ups, or at least ease in finding them. Any how, I hope someone benefits from these. Enjoy.

**EDIT**

It has been a while since I updated this post. It has come to my attention that my uploaded files were no longer online for some reason. At any rate, since then, Microsoft introduced these applications as a part of their “Live Essentials” package. The same issue as described above still exists to some degree, but Microsoft finally made an “offline” installer available at the following link:

http://g.live.com/1rewlive3/en/wlsetup-all.exe

Just let me know if this doesn’t work for you and I will make sure to upload it somewhere.