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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Installing and running Windows Live Writer on Windows Server 2003 - use the *.msi file

Having been a Post2Blog user for some time now, and not necessarily unhappy with it, but also hearing a lot about Windows Live Writer, I decided to give it a try. However when I ran the setup file, I got a message which said that my OS is not supported. Sheesh!!!! a divorce even before the honeymoon - naaah!!!. Decided to do something to make it work.

First tried to run the setup file in compatibility mode - no luck, same message. Then turned to Google. No surprises here - Google had the perfect solution to my problem. The first result it produced  - Andrew Tokeley's blog had my answer. What on Earth would I have done had it not been for our dear, (not-so)old Google. Turns out that the program itself is perfectly compatible with my OS, but for some unfathomable reason, the developers have chosen not to make the installation file compatible. Wokay! so you want me to install program using its msi file - no problemo. Windows Live Writer has not officially released its program as a msi file. But the post had a link to the msi version. Using it I was able to install the program. If you have access to a computer that has a compatible OS installed, then just run the installation on that computer and copy the .msi file from its Temp directory. You can then use this file to install WLW on your Windows Server 2003-based terminal

20080429livewriter01 As the msi was of a slightly older build, I was hoping that it would get updated to the latest build in some time as I had Automatic Updates enabled for my computer. However even after almost around 10 hours of Internet usage the arrival of the updates was nowhere on the horizon. So then again began my search for the solution. I first tried to find offline download files for the update though the official links. No such luck (if I had, then I probably wouldn't be writing this anyway). Then again came Google to my rescue - the very first page20080429livewriter02 had my answer. Downloading the relevant cab file, I extracted and ran the msp file from it. Once done, the program was now been updated to the latest build, which is what I am using to post this blog (also one of the reasons why I am making this post - just to see how things will work out with this). Thus this is my first post that I am making here using my newly installed Windows Live Writer program updated to the latest build.

Related Links

Original page containing the link to the MSI file - German
Its translated counterpart - courtesy Google Translate Beta
Page containing link to the updates for Windows Live Writer

&author_id=214E38D6-CC5D-4A28-9115-00591447624F&page=0&top=0.5&bottom=0.5&left=1.5&right=1.0>PDF version