Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows Live Writer, a new desktop-based blogging tool. Despite Windows Live Spaces, I never really expected Microsoft to release a blogging tool, especially a general-purpose one, but it has. And I've got to say, for Microsoft, I'm impressed. I encountered a few of the same issues that Paul Kedrosky did: Writer forced me to use a wizard to set up my blog, and would only let me manually configure it once it got confused, the "Web Layout" is completely useless on my blog, and the "Web Preview" wasn't even close to accurate.

However, overall I found Windows Live Writer fairly well put-together. I tested it with my WordPress blog, and it did most of the things I expected and a few I was pleasantly surprised by. In particular, its image editing and uploading features are surprisingly powerful. It let me load images, add effects, adjustments, and text watermarks, and then it automatically uploaded them when I posted to my WordPress blog. It even let me paste screenshots directly into the editing area, but a Crop function was curiously missing. Apart from that, the only major thing missing from the image functions was the ability to add an image that's already been uploaded, or exists on another web site.

Windows Live Writer defaults to WYSIWYG, which annoyed me, but I was amazed that the HTML it generates isn't particularly ugly and actually validates. Thankfully, it seems that no cues were taken from FrontPage. Writer has a lot of convenience features that aren't unexpected but are welcome. Spell-check is built-in but unfortunately not as-you-type like in Word or Firefox (oddly, it doesn't know the word "blogging") and Writer can be configured to automatically save drafts. It also has an "Insert Map" feature for quickly embedding Windows Live Local maps in blog posts, which is mostly fluff but may be handy for some users.

I was disappointed that Windows Live Writer doesn't support tagging via the popular Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin for WordPress, but I've yet to encounter a blogging tool that does. Speaking of plugins, however, Writer itself has a plugin interface and a free SDK, which will hopefully encourage developers to add this sort of functionality.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance I encountered with Windows Live Writer was the temporary post it created in my blog without asking. It was set to private, so I was the only one who saw it, but it still felt like an imposition.

You can see a few screenshots of WIndows Live Writer in action (including one of the errant temporary post) after the jump.

When you first set it up, Windows Live Writer spends quite a lot of time "analyzing" your blog, probably to facilitate the "Web Layout" and "Web Preview" modes which are pretty broken anyway.

A post written in "Normal" mode being sent to the server as a draft. (Click to enlarge.)

A photo resized and with some effects applied. The Properties box on the bottom lets you change the post's settings and send trackbacks. (Click to enlarge.)

This is the "temporary post" Windows Live Writer left for me in WordPress. It says, "Please delete this manually."