Open Live Writer

Some of you are fans of Windows Live Writer, a Microsoft blogging tool. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer supports this product. However what they have done, is made the source code available under an open source license through a group called the .NET Foundation. This group have created an independent version of Windows Live Writer which they call Open Live Writer.

The last major release of Windows Live Writer was in 2012, though it takes a bit of searching to locate it. Open Live Writer is based on that release and is being maintained and enhanced. The current version of Open Live Writer is 0.6 released in February 2016. Do not be fooled by that version number as it is based on the mature Windows Live Writer source code.

I installed Open Live Writer (OLW) on a laptop computer running Windows 10. OLW will run on older Windows releases, but some features may not work on Windows 7 and earlier.

Here are links to information about OLW:

History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Live_Writer

About .NET Foundation: http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/about

Download OLW: http://openlivewriter.org/

This article was, by the way, written using OLW. Installation was remarkably straightforward. Download the setup file (link above). Double-click on the downloaded file (OpenLiveWriterSetup.exe) and just follow the instructions. You will need the URL of your blog (mine is jrg0.bridgeblogging.com) and your login password.