There is also a new video stabilization feature, which will be a boon to those with cameras that don't offer this feature. Movie Maker now takes advantage of hardware acceleration, which will speed up video exporting and encoding. This basic video editing tool remains great while offering a few new features. Last but not least, we have Windows Movie Maker, which is the stand out application of Windows Essentials. It's a basic WYSIWYG editor that lacks features that would be useful for intermediate and expert bloggers. You can write, attach photos, and edit the theme of your blog from the application but its features are limited enough that users may as well use the website to make changes. It is basically a writing app that integrates with your Blogger, Wordpress, SharePoint, and other blogging services. Windows Live Writer is the oddball of Windows Essentials. The redesign helps to make the web site feel like an app so Live mail might not benefit users who prefer the web interface. There's an offline mode but Live Mail offers little benefit to those who want to manage their mail exclusively in a browser. It is a solid mail client that offers a good way to manage your mail on the desktop. Windows Essentials solves this by bundling Windows Live Mail. While competitors Apple has their default Mail application, Windows doesn't come with a mail client out of the box. Integration is seamless and you'll soon forget about it, which is good.

Make a change to a document on one machine and every other machine you have linked to your SkyDrive will update that document to the latest version. Similar to Dropbox's approach, SkyDrive creates a folder that syncs to the cloud and between machines. SkyDrive is perhaps the least exciting but necessary app included in Windows Essentials. There is also a new ' auto collage' feature which blends photos you choose into one fluid picture. There's still great social network integration for quick, seamless sharing. You can now tag people in photos in bulk.

Both programs are now designed for Windows 8 in mind and feature the Microsoft ribbon interface. Photo Gallery and Movie Maker are the highlights of Windows Essentials as they received the biggest overhaul.

See our full review of Windows Live Messenger 2012 here. We would have liked to have seen some more changes to make Windows Live Messenger relevant in this crowded space. The interface is almost exactly the same as Windows Live Messenger 2011. There's tabbed browsing, Facebook/ Linkedin integration, and the ability to log chats. Windows Live Messenger hasn't seen much changed.

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