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Windows Live doesn’t support Vista x64, yet!

As you may have noticed earlier this month, Microsoft released new builds of the Windows Live series of programs that it seems are destined to form the Windows Live Suite 2008. The individual components and their build numbers are listed below for prosperity

Unfortunately users that try to run the installer on a Windows Vista x64 system will encounter the rather obscure error message “Windows Live programs can’t be installed on this operating system.” as can be seen in the screen shot below.

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A search using Google didn’t bring back anything useful so I wandered over to the newsgroups and found a workaround as well as the following statement from Brandon LeBlanc on Vista x64 support:

“To everyone running 64-bit and unable to install the betas – do not worry. Microsoft fully intends to support 64-bit users for the new Windows Live installer and apps at release.”

Apparently the problem is not with the actual applications or their individual installers but rather with the new shared Windows Live Installer (WLInstaller.exe) which doesn’t support x64 as yet. This is confirmed by the release notes I found for Windows Live Installer (build 1320.0823).

However I did find some users posting workarounds to the problem. The easiest solution is to run the shared installer on a x86 machine first and to then copy the MSI files and run the individual installations manually. If you don’t have access to an x86 machine then you can always hack the shared installer using a hex editor and get the installers out that way.

I’m personally very excited to check out the new Windows Live Writer features as well as the first public beta of Windows Live Photo Gallery which apparently replaces the Vista Windows Photo Gallery component.

[tags]Windows Live,Windows Live Messenger,Windows Live Writer,x64[/tags]