Windows Live Writer

The blog editor bloggers loved, from Onfolio to Windows Essentials 2012, abandoned by Microsoft and rescued as open source

Shut down
19902026

Windows Live Writer was a free desktop blog editor for Windows, released in beta on 13 August 2006 from Microsoft's acquisition of Onfolio, that let writers compose posts offline in a WYSIWYG view of their own blog's theme and publish to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal and others. It shipped in every Windows Live Essentials suite until Windows Essentials 2012, was left unmaintained, and was open-sourced as Open Live Writer in December 2015; Microsoft support ended on 10 January 2017.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2006
  2. 7 March 2006 other
    Microsoft acquires Onfolio

    J.J. Allaire's team builds Writer.

  3. 13 August 2006 Launch
    Windows Live Writer beta

    Publish to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and more.

  4. 2009
  5. 8 January 2009 Version
    Windows Live Essentials 2009

    Writer joins the suite.

  6. 2012
  7. 7 August 2012 Version
    Windows Essentials 2012

    The last release.

  8. 2015
  9. 9 December 2015 Revival
    Open Live Writer released

    The code goes to the .NET Foundation.

  10. 2017
  11. 10 January 2017 Shutdown
    Support ends with Windows Essentials 2012

The site through time

Browse windows.microsoft.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2017 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Microsoft 2006–2017 Founded Built by the Onfolio team Microsoft acquired in March 2006; open-sourced December 2015

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Windows Live Writer had its last release in Windows Essentials 2012 and was not updated afterwards; when Microsoft announced on 9 December 2015 that it was open-sourcing the code as Open Live Writer under the .NET Foundation, it was already broken for Blogger and Google's new authentication. Support for the whole Windows Essentials 2012 suite, Writer included, ended on 10 January 2017 and the installer was withdrawn. Open Live Writer continues as a community project.

Our analysis: Live Writer was the best thing in the Windows Live suite and the least strategic: a free desktop editor for other people's blog platforms, WordPress above all, that made no money and drove nobody to a Microsoft service. Blogging itself moved to the browser and to phones, and Microsoft moved to Windows 8 apps and Office. The rare part is what happened next: instead of letting it rot, a group of Microsoft engineers spent their own time getting the code released, which is why it still exists.

History [edit]

An editor for everyone else's blogs

Microsoft bought Onfolio, J.J. Allaire's research and publishing tools company, in March 2006, and five months later, on 13 August 2006, released the first beta of Windows Live Writer, built by the Onfolio team. It was an unusual Microsoft product: a desktop application whose only purpose was to publish to blogging services Microsoft did not own. You pointed it at your WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal or Windows Live Spaces blog and it downloaded your theme so that the editor showed your post exactly as it would appear, with photos, maps, tables, tags and categories, and published, edited or scheduled it through the blog's API. It worked offline, it had plug-ins, and bloggers who tried it tended not to go back to their browser's editor.

It shipped in Windows Live Essentials 2009, 2011 and Windows Essentials 2012, alongside Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery and Movie Maker, and the 2012 release, in August 2012, was the last. Blogging had by then moved on to browser editors, Tumblr and phones, Windows Live Spaces had closed, and Microsoft had no reason to keep a team on it.

Open Live Writer

By 2015 the unmaintained program could no longer log in to Blogger, and a group of Microsoft engineers, led by Scott Hanselman, spent a year getting permission to release the code. On 9 December 2015 Open Live Writer appeared under the MIT licence at the .NET Foundation, with Google restoring Blogger support for it, and it became the way to keep using Writer on modern Windows. Microsoft ended support for Windows Essentials 2012, and with it the original Live Writer, on 10 January 2017.

The domain today

The Windows Live Writer pages on windows.microsoft.com redirect to a notice that Windows Essentials is no longer available; the open-source fork lives at openlivewriter.com.

Similar projects

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Sources [edit]

  1. Writer is Microsoft's first Live killer app ZDNet 14 August 2006 [archived]
  2. Microsoft open-sources Live Writer, beloved but abandoned blogging tool Ars Technica 9 December 2015 [archived]
  3. OpenLiveWriter on GitHub GitHub 9 December 2015 [archived]
  4. Open Live Writer .NET Foundation 1 January 2016 [archived]
  5. Microsoft will stop supporting its Windows Essentials 2012 suite in January Digital Trends 18 October 2016 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).