The Microsoft-Centric Windows Live Toolbar 3

Lately, every time you turn around Microsoft seems to be releasing or rechristening a Web service with the Windows Live moniker. To date, seeing how all of these Windows Live tools work together has been difficult, but in the new Windows Live Toolbar 3 for Internet Explorer 6 we finally get an inkling of that integration. The toolbar offers easy access to other Windows Live services, but accessing non-Microsoft services is more difficult than it should be.

At 1.3MB, the free Windows Live Toolbar is quick to download and simple to set up. It includes a shortcut to the Windows Live Gallery, where you can select from dozens of buttons to import from categories such as search, shopping, mail, and contacts. You simply click ‘Add’ to download a button to your toolbar.

Not surprisingly, the default search engine is Windows Live Search, but you can enter a new default search engine in the Options dialog box. Accessing other, non-Microsoft services is not as straightforward, though. The new ‘Make a Button’ option on the toolbar’s Gallery menu allows you to create a button to reach a non-Microsoft service, but it’s not simple. The form that you are required to fill out is unintuitive, and the first attempt I made to create a shortcut to PCWorld.com failed.

One of the Windows Live Toolbar features I found most useful was actually first available in the previous release: the Onfolio RSS aggregator and information manager, which you use to create collections of Web information on a single subject.

The only real investments you have to make in this toolbar are the time and effort necessary to configure it. If you’re an avid user of Microsoft’s windows Live services, Windows Live Toolbar 3 is for you. If you’re not a heavy Microsoft user, however, you’ll discover that it isn’t nearly as friendly.

URL: toolbar.live.com

[tags]Windows Live[/tags]