Getting Started with Windows Live Writer

    Recently we showed you how to setup Windows Live Essentials 2011. We also  took a closer look at one of the apps – the Bing Bar, and today we will take a look  at Windows Live Writer which is a valuable program for bloggers.

Installing Windows Live Writer

If you haven’t installed it already just download and kick off the Windows Live Essentials installer. Remember you don’t need to install everything in the suite and when the install kicks off, select Choose the programs you want to install.

Now select the programs you want to install. In this example we’re just going to install Windows Live Writer (WLW).

After installation is complete you’ll find Live Writer in the Start Menu.

Configure Your Blog with WLW

After you have it installed and launch Live Writer you’ll be prompted to configure your blog with it.

Choose the blog service you want to setup with WLW. You can use it with most of the popular services like WordPress, Blogger, Live Spaces, and several others.

Next enter in your blog address and login credentials.

Now wait a couple of moments while WLW connects to your blog account.

Provided you entered in the blog info successfully, you’ll be presented with the following message asking if you want to have the theme appear in WLW. This can make it easy so you will know what your posts will look like when you publish them. Just remember this will send up a temporary post and you may not want a temp post showing on your feed.

Success! Now enter in a nickname for your blog and click Finish.

Now you can start writing your blog posts. WLW allows you to easily add images, video, links and a lot more.

If you’re tired of navigating to your blog service’s website and using their user interface to create your blog posts, or are serious about getting your blog rolling, then  Windows Live Writer is a valuable tool. It includes a lot of features which you can use to create professional looking posts and hey…it’s free!

In future articles we’ll be taking a closer look at the features included in WLW so make sure to subscribe to The Average Guy Blog & Podcast Network RSS Feed.