Windows® 7 All-in-One for Dummies®

Chapter I.5. Getting Essentials: The Rest of Windows 7

In This Chapter

• Understanding that Live Essentials are, uh, an essential part of Windows 7

• Knowing where Windows Live Essentials came from

• Winnowing out the not-so-essential Essentials

• Downloading and installing the Essentials

So you have Windows 7 going — either on a brand-new computer or installed on an old workhorse — and you're raring to go.Good.

But wait a minute. You don't have all of Windows 7 yet. Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, has lopped off big parts of Windows and stuck them up in the cloud, on the Internet. If you want Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, or Movie Maker (the more popular Essentials), you have to download and install them. This chapter steps you through the Essentials elements, helps you choose which ones you want, and deals out the straight scoop on installing them intelligently. If you're looking for detailed references for the individual Essentials, those come later, in the books and chapters that pertain to the topic at hand. I point you to each of them in this chapter, for your further edification and enjoyment.

There's one other "Essential" that qualifies as a horse of a different color: Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus/antimalware product from Microsoft, isn't an official part of the Windows Live Essentials. Don't ask me why, but MS decided to borrow the "Essential" name for its free antivirus product, then distribute Microsoft Security Essentials in a completely different way, outside ...