If you don’t already have Windows Writer installed on your computer, you need to add it. First, how-
ever, click Start ➪ All Programs ➪ Windows Live and make sure you don’t see Windows Live Writer
in the menu. If you do see it, Writer is already installed and you can skip to the next section to start
learning how to use it.
To add Writer, open Internet Explorer and browse to home.live.com. Log in with your Windows
Live account. (If you don’t already have one, you can easily sign up for one right from the login page.)
Then, in the Windows Live Web site, click More ➪ Downloads. In the Blogging section, click Writer
to open the download page.
Click the Download button, and when the File Download dialog box appears, click Run. If User
Account Control displays a security warning, click Yes to allow the Windows Live Setup program to
run. In the Windows Live installer, click the button beside Writer. You can also choose
to download other Windows Live add-ons at this time, or run the installer again later to add other
add-ons. If the installer shows that Writer is already installed, as shown in Figure 17-3, you don’t
need to install it again. You can certainly add any other Windows Live programs that are not yet
installed, however.
Setting Up Your Blog Account
After you have installed Writer or ascertained that you already have it, you need to configure at least
one blog account. The following section explains how.
Adding a blog account
Writer automatically should run a configuration wizard the first time you start the program. If you
need to start the wizard yourself, choose Blogs ➪ Add Blog Account to start the Windows Live Writer
Wizard.
If you already have a blog, in the first page of the wizard choose the type of service where it is hosted:
1) Windows Live Spaces: Choose this option if your blog is already set up on Windows Live.
2) SharePoint blog: Choose this option if your blog is set up on a Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server (MOSS) site.
3)Other blog service: Choose this option if your blog is hosted by a different site.
If you don’t have a blog already, you can use the wizard to set up one at Windows Live. That’s the
option I focus on in this section. If you already have a blog site, all you need to do is enter the blog
site URL in the wizard and provide login credentials when prompted