A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft released a new update for Windows Live Essentials 2011. The update included some minor changes and bug fixes for programs including Windows Live Messenger, Movie Maker and more. However, Microsoft didn"t specify what changes and fixes were made in the update, saying at the time they simply had "critical fixes for the Essentials package."
Now some real details about what was included in the update have been posted on Microsoft Answers. The change log includes details of an update for Windows Live Mail, whereby when a user clicks on a photo hosted on SkyDrive or Facebook, a browser now opens the web album viewer rather than using the Client Album Viewer. That same change has also been added for Windows Live Messenger.
The Windows Photo Gallery app now has an updated authorization method when a person uses it to upload photos to the Flickr or Facebook services as well as another new authorization update for geo tagging with Bing Maps. In addition, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Movie Maker received updates that fixed some minor errors. Finally, the splash screen for Windows Live Essentials 2011 now loads faster in its setup process when a user accepts the UAC prompt.
The update is still an option but Microsoft will make the upgrade a mandatory download sometime in the near future if people continue to use the software included in the bundle.