Hey everyone,

We've been watching the comments that you leave for us, and we wanted to answer your frequently asked questions.

Leave us a comment and let us know if these FAQs are helpful, and if there are other questions that you have that aren't included.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

FAQ Sections

• Account
• Spaces and Blogs
• Friends
• Photos
• Search
• Windows Live Writer

Account

Q: When I go to my Windows Live space, it says it's unavailable. What's the problem?
A: Here are some of the things that might affect your ability to view your space:

• Operational issues
  Please check the Spaces home page or The Space Craft to verify the Windows Live Spaces service is available. If problems persist, you can be sure we're working on it. We need some time to resolve these types of issues, so please check back later.
  
• Code of conduct violation:
  You may have posted content to your space (often unintentionally) that violates the Windows Live Code of Conduct. Check your Hotmail inbox, or the inbox associated with your Windows Live ID, for messages from Support.

If you're still not sure why your space is unavailable but the rest of the site seems to be working, please contact Windows Live Support for additional assistance.

Q: How do I change the space web address that's associated with my Windows Live ID?
A: You can have one space web address per Windows Live ID. This means that if you want to change the address that's associated with your Windows Live ID, you must delete your existing space and then select a new address. To change your web address, follow the instructions in the FAQ about deleting your space. After you see the confirmation that your space has been cleared, click Your space in the navigation bar to create a new space for yourself.  Click Choose web address in the Welcome module and enter your new web address.  

Q.  I just created a new e-mail address.  How can I associate this new e-mail address with my existing Windows Live Space?
A.  A space is associated with a single e-mail address from its creation, and you can’t change that association. However, if you clear your existing space, you may be able to reclaim the web address for your space using your new e-mail address. Then that web address would be associated with your new e-mail address. You’d have to add all of the content back onto your new space, though. Please note that it can take up to 60 days for your web address to free up before you can reclaim it.

Q: How do I delete my Windows Live space?
A: Once you have created a space, you can delete it at any time. Go to your space and sign-in, and then click Options and then Space settings. At the bottom of the space settings page you'll see the section Clear your space. Click Clear your space and you can clear all of the information on your space and delete your web address. Please note that doing this will erase all of the content on your space and you won't be able to get it back.  

Q: What types of content are not allowed on Windows Live Spaces?
A: We want Windows Live to be a great place for you to share and express yourself. The members of our team come from diverse backgrounds, have a broad diversity of opinions, and do our best to respect those.  However, there are some types of content which are not appropriate for sharing on Windows Live. You can read about what's not allowed in the Windows Live Code of Conduct and Microsoft Service Agreement.

Q: How do I report a space that has pornography?
A: We take our content policies very seriously. If you come across a space that you believe has objectionable content, please report it by clicking Report Abuse at the bottom right of every page.

Spaces and blogs

Q: How can I remove a comment?
A: To remove a comment, go to your blog entry page, sign in, and then click Edit. Scroll to the bottom of the edit page and click the red X for the blog comment(s) you want to remove, and then click Publish entry. It's important to remember to click Publish entry to delete the comments. The entry will be saved but the date of the original post will remain the same. 

Q: How do I manage and delete multiple comments at the same time from multiple blog entries?
A: You can manage comments from multiple blog entries from the summary view. Here's how to get to the summary view:

1. Sign in to your space.
2. Go to your blog.
3. Change to summary view by clicking Summary in the left column.
4. Click Comments below each blog entry to show the comments for that blog entry.
5. Select the comments you want to delete and click Delete selected items.

Q: How do I add and remove modules? Is it gone forever once I hide it?
A: To see a list of all modules, click Customize and then Modules. Select a module to add it to your space, and then drag the module to where you want it to appear. Remember to click Save to save your changes. You can also hide a module. Just click Customize and then Modules. Look through the list to find the module you want to hide, and then click the module name to hide it. Hiding a module removes it from your space but doesn't delete it —you can add it back at any time (with all the content you added previously) by selecting it from the Customize page.

Q: Does the statistics page count the number of times that I visit my own space?
A: It depends. When you are signed-in and visiting your own space, the pages you view do not count as part of your space statistics.

Friends

Q: How do I remove people from my what's new list?
A: At the bottom of your signed-in Windows Live Spaces home page, click Options at the bottom of the what's new module. You can select who you want to show and who you don't want to show in the what's new list on this options page. Note: We're aware of some issues on the what's new options page, so if it doesn't seem to be working for you, rest assured that we're actively working on it.

Q: How do I reorder people on my friends list?
A: For instructions on how to manage and reorder your friends list, read this Space Craft blog entry.

Q: How do I delete people on my friends list?
A: To delete someone from your friends list, sign in, go to your space, and then go to your friends list (one way to get there is to click your friends list module heading, or you can click Friends in the top navigation). Click the pencil icon next to the person you want to delete. On the next page, click Delete from friends list. The person will be removed from your friends list. If you want to add them back, you'll need to invite them to be a friend again.

Q: If I have a friend that deleted his space. Will he still appear on my friends list?
A: Yes. If you're friends with someone who's deleted their space, they'll still appear on your friends list unless you explicitly remove them.

Photos

Q: Why do I have photo albums that have no pictures in them?
A: If you have an empty photo album, you may have clicked Add album and then didn't add any photos.  You can either add photos to that album or you can delete it from your space.

Q: How do I delete a photo album?
A:  Go to your space, sign in, and click Photos. On the photos page, click Edit or delete albums.  On the next page, select an album(s), and then click Delete selected albums. Note: if you delete an album, all the photos in that album will be deleted from your space. For more info, read this blog post on the Space Craft.

Q: Is it possible to change the order my albums?
A: Yes. Sign in, go to your photos page, and then click Edit or delete albums. You can drag your albums into any order you want. When you're done, click Save and close.

Q: I can no longer embed photos from my Windows Live space on another webpage or blog.  Is there a reason for this?
A: Only photo albums that are available publicly to everyone on the Internet can be embedded on another webpage.  As a result, the embed link will only show up for public albums on a public space.  If the permissions for your space are set to anything other than public, you won't be able to embed your photos in another webpage. If you want to embed your photos, sign in to your space. Click Options and then Permissions. Change the permission to Anyone on the Internet. Also make sure your album permissions are set to Anyone on the Internet.

Q: How do I rotate a photo before I upload it?
A: If you use Internet Explorer, you can rotate your images using the Spaces ActiveX photo upload control.  Place your cursor over the photo you want to rotate and you should see the rotate controls on the bottom of the photo. You can also rotate your photos with an image editing program like Windows Live Photo Gallery (this is especially handy if you're using a browser that doesn't support Active X, like Firefox). With Photo Gallery you can rotate more than one photo at a time, and you can batch upload your photos to your space.

Q: Can I add photos to my Windows Live space and restrict them so that only certain people can see them?
A: Yes. After you add your photos, click the album, and then click Edit album. There should be a permissions area on the page that tells you the current permissions settings for this album. Click Edit permissions and then select the people who're allowed to see this album. You can set different permissions for each album.

Q: Why is there a blog images album on my space? Can I delete it?
A: The blog images album contains images that were uploaded to your space, but not into a specific photo album. For example, if you added a blog post that included a photo, the photo is stored in the blog images album. If you delete this album, you'll also delete the image from the blog post, and you'll see a red X in the blog post where the image used to be.  In other words, we recommend that you do not delete this album.  You can however, move the album to the bottom of list of albums to make it less visible.

Search

Q: How do I get my Windows Live space and blog to show up in search engine results?
A: Here are a few things that may help your space and blog appear more often in search results:

• Make sure the permissions for your blog are set to public (Anyone on the Internet).
• Include some text on your blog and in your profile, especially if you want your blog to show up when you search for your name. For example, include a small paragraph about yourself on your profile or space, and make sure you blog posts have text in them, not just pictures or videos.
• Make sure the search engines know about your space, blog, and profile.  While Windows Live Spaces supports the SiteMaps.org protocol and sends pings for new blog entries, you may find directly submitting your space, blog, and profile to a search engine may increase your likelihood of getting indexed. 
• You may also find that getting people to link to your space, blog, or profile will help to increase both your likelihood of getting indexed in search engines and can affect where your page is listed in the search results. Three ways to get inbound links are: 1) leave relevant comments on other people’s blogs, 2) ask people to link to your page, and 3) invite your real-world friends to become friends on Windows Live (when they accept your invitation, they'll automatically be linking to your page).
• You can also use Windows Live Writer to set ping servers which will automatically notify certain websites when you've posted a new blog entry. See the Writer section of this FAQ for more information.

Q: How do let people search the content on my Windows Live space?
A: To help visitors search your space, add the Search My Blog gadget.

Windows Live Writer

Q: How do I notify search engines that I've posted a new blog entry?
A: With Windows Live Writer you can set up your blog posts so that every time you post a new blog entry, Writer automatically notifies the search engines, feed readers, and other sites of your choosing. Just set up the appropriate ping servers and you can quickly ensure that your blog entries are being indexed. See this blog post on the Writer blog for more information

Q: Are there any video tutorials to help me understand more about the features and functionality in Windows Live Writer?
A: Yes, the Writer team has created several videos to help people blog with Windows Live Writer. Check out the list of videos

This morning, the Windows Live Writer team released a new version of Writer for download from Writer Zone, their team blog.   The new version is a technical preview only available in English (United States), and the primary focus of the release is to get feedback on the improvements made to the plug-in SDK. 

In addition, there are some additional product features as well, including the ability to publish videos from your computer to Soapbox and Spaces as well as new photo editing capabilities.

Go check out the Writer team space where you can read more about the SDK changes and the new features, and download the technical preview.

And as always, keep the feedback coming.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

We're looking for people who love using Windows Live products. More importantly, we're looking for those of you who would like to share your experiences on Windows Live with others.

This is your chance to help build a community from the ground up. We'd like to showcase for the world the best of what you do on Windows Live. If you have stories, tips or tricks, or product reviews you would like to share with our entire Windows Live audience, we'd like to hear from you.

If you're interested, take this short survey so we can find the best way to get you involved.

Thanks for participating!

Marty Collins
Community Manager for Windows Live

Have you heard about Windows Live Writer and how easy it makes blogging, but didn’t know how to get it or how to configure it to work with your space?

The Writer team has created a set of instructional videos which show you how to:

• Quickly set-up Windows Live Writer to publish to your space or a newly created space
• Begin authoring a blog entry with Windows Live Spaces
• Insert and format pictures, videos, maps, and other content directly into blog entries
• Publish a blog entry to your space with one click

Check out the Windows Live Writer space for more information and if you don’t have Windows Live Writer yet, download it here.

Enjoy and let us know your feedback on Writer by leaving us a comment.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Congratulations to one of our sibling teams, Live QnA, on their recent launch of major updates on their site. 

Dennis has all of the details on the QnA team space and as you may know, you can add modules to your space for “Questions I’ve Asked” and “Questions I’ve Answered” on Live QnA.  Details on these modules are also in an earlier entry on the QnA team space. 

Congrats again to the QnA team.

--Rob
Program Manager, Windows Live

We wanted to let you know that we had a small release to Spaces today.

The primary change in this release was that you can now include Messenger for the web as well as SkyDrive files in the Custom HTML module using embed codes.  

In addition, we also made some changes to the infrastructure of Spaces to make the service faster and more reliable.

We hope you enjoy the changes.   Keep giving us the feedback.  We are listening.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Do you want to work on one of the fastest growing products using some of the hottest technologies on the web today?  Are you passionate for the web and the desire to create great new user experiences?

If you are an engineer who wants to set new grounds in innovative technology – we want you on the Windows Live Social Networking team to help design and build our next generation of social networking products.  As a member of the Social Networking team, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute significantly to the design and implementation of our worldwide products – including Windows Live Spaces, Events, and Writer – as well as collaborate closely with other Windows Live Experience teams including Hotmail and Messenger.

Check out our job descriptions here and here.   If you think you have what it takes, submit your resume online.

We want you on our team.

- The Windows Live Social Networking team.

Last week, the Windows Live Wire team posted about (PRODUCT) Red and the work they’re doing in Africa.   We wanted to share their inspiring story and the great space that the (PRODUCT) Red team created.

Jeff Dossett, an Executive Producer and General Manager at MSN, said “I can’t sing but I can climb mountains.”  He and two other elite mountaineers have formed Everest Team INSPI(RED) and are climbing  Mount Everest to build awareness of (RED), an organization designed to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.  Their team hopes to inspire individuals to passionately pursue big, bold goals.

Even if you can’t climb mountains you can follow their journey on their space.  You can show your support by adding them as a friend, signing the guestbook and sharing your own personal inspirations.

If you'd like to add a little RED to your desktop, you can download the (PRODUCT) RED Theme Pack that includes Hotmail Signatures and emoticons and winks for Messenger. And a desktop gadget is available for Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista to track the elevation of the expedition as they attempt to climb the world’s highest peak.   You can also create an alert to be notified whenever they post a new entry from Everest.

The team is currently 17,000 feet above sea level at Base Camp (1)! Let their journey inspire you to do something amazing, too.  

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

First, thanks again for all of your feedback. There's nothing like receiving comments and ideas directly from some of our 115 million monthly Spaces users worldwide. 

Based on what we've heard from you, here's the latest round of changes we've made:

• You now have the ability to remove updates from specific people in the what's new area of your Spaces home page. 

At the bottom of your (signed-in) Spaces home page, you now have an “Options” link. 

Clicking “Options” will take you to a “What’s new Options” page where you can choose who of your Spaces friends and Messenger contacts show up on your home page.

• We've added back your list descriptions for all lists when they are displayed in the narrow column
• The font for custom lists is no longer bold by default
• We changed the Sponsored Results module to reflect the transition of our partnership with Kanoodle
• We've made some additional smaller changes which you won’t see but which will further improve the Spaces service

We hope you enjoy these changes.   As always, keep the feedback coming. We are listening.

- Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Congratulations to our colleagues on the IE team on the release of Beta 1 of Internet Explorer 8!  Whether it’s IE, FireFox, Opera, Safari, or other browsers, it’s always exciting to see new versions of browsers released.   

The Beta 1 of IE8 is intended primarily for developers (not necessarily consumers or enterprises), so I don’t expect everyone to go download it immediately.  But if you do decide to download the Beta 1 of IE8, and you notice any issues with Windows Live Spaces or Windows Live Events we wanted to give you a way to view existing bugs and report any additional bugs.

The IE8 team has set up a bunch of ways to provide feedback to them and they outlined them on their team blog:

So, what do you do if you believe you have an issue that the IE team needs to know about? Here are the steps we encourage you to take:

1. Read the IE8 Release notes – we try to outline most of the known issues in this document at the time of release. 
2. Visit the Internet Explorer 8 Technical Beta program on Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) and view bugs in the database. Note: you must register on the Microsoft Connect to search for your issue
3. If you find your issue, please rate it (vote for it). This will help us understand how many people find this issue important
4. If you don’t find your issue, you can visit the IE beta newsgroup and post your issue there. Members of the technical beta will be monitoring this newsgroup and can file a bug about the issue on your behalf in the technical beta

I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the best ways to get help if you have problems with the Beta 1 version of IE8 on any of the Windows Live Services.  You can of course always leave us feedback and comments here on the Space Craft, but in order to ensure that they are addressed correctly, we recommend following the steps listed above.

--Rob
Program Manager, Windows Live

At the end of last week, we released some new features for Spaces and Windows Live Events. Here's the low-down:

New in Windows Live Spaces

Friends of your friends
When you're signed in and you visit another person's space, you can easily see the friends you have in common.

Multiple photo modules
More than 8 million photos are uploaded to Windows Live a day, so we figured you might like to have more ways to showcase your photos on your space. Now you can! Just add more than one photo album to your space from the Customize page.

Additional markets and additional storage for Windows Live SkyDrive 
In addition to the US, UK, and India, SkyDrive is now available to users in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Turkey.

In addition, SkyDrive users will also have more room for storing files because the limit is being raised from 1GB to 5GB.   So now you have five times the space you had before — that’s 5GB of free online storage for your favorite documents, pictures, and other files.   SkyDrive is a great way to make sure your files are available to you from any computer, without having to carry them around on a flash drive.  It is really useful for sharing files that may be too big to send in e-mail.

For Spaces users in the countries above, you will see a link on your Spaces home page which will allow you to upload files directly from Spaces to Windows Live SkyDrive.   Just click on the Share Files link at the top of the Spaces home page.

You can also learn more by visiting the SkyDrive team blog.

New in Windows Live Events

We added new features to Events to make it more personal. When you create an event on Windows Live, your own name and e-mail address appears on the invitation instead of the automatically generated e-mail address. In addition, any public events you organize will show up in your Windows Live profile and Events homepage so your friends and Messenger contacts will know when and where it's happening.

As always, let us know your thoughts and keep sending us your feedback.   We are listening.

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live

Vanity Fair may have canceled their Academy Awards party, but that doesn't mean you have to go without.  MSN has a party of their own going on with full coverage of all the drama surrounding the big awards show, and they've created a custom theme for Windows Live Events that you can use to plan your Oscar party.

For help making your predictions on who will win, visit the 2008 Oscars Space for a downloadable ballot and a few opinions from the official blogger.

So invite your friends and roll out the red carpet to your own Academy Awards viewing party.

Charlotte Jones

Senior Product Manager, Windows Live Events

Did you know that you can add stuff from the Web to your space or event without even knowing a tiny bit of code?  They’re called gadgets, and thanks to some hard-working developers from around the world, there are now over 1,500 gadgets available worldwide for Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Events.

I wanted to highlight a few specific gadgets. The gadgets listed below make keeping in touch with your friends and Messenger contacts more fun, finding content on your blog faster, and adding interesting content from MSN easier.  So, check out and install the gadgets below and, as always, keep the comments coming!

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

Windows Live Messenger Gadget http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=5da858b5-fa45-4730-89f8-380702da99cd&pl=5&bt=7 Search Gadgets Search My Blog - Search box http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=94be978d-c62a-4640-b63f-a1d412afb337&pl=5&bt=7 Search My Blog - Tagcloud http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=ef195187-2cae-49b5-afe9-a50eb7ccb766&pl=5&bt=7 Silverlight Streaming Video Insertion http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=f55426a2-1d8d-4db7-8770-ea30cb393b2a&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Content Encarta Quote of the Day http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3c93e552-d8b2-4c51-9d65-83a6e6aa2cbb&pl=5&bt=7 Encarta RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=4ede7e47-c127-4a9f-9440-75825a4f3c57&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Autos RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=0774022b-0c3c-479e-abd1-a5ac3df09206&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Entertainment RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=a50310fb-fd34-4efe-843f-8bf6213104a8&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Homepage RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b879476d-7e05-431a-9098-b669ada7a797&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Money RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=7f8d5a7d-23cf-4a3f-b019-ba25ccb0b73c&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Shopping RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=91f9a478-a692-4646-9a5f-7c29c1fa1f00&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Tech and Gadgets RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=2521aeaf-4ef6-43fa-87d5-2607e7bc4b61&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Video RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3f64534a-5a96-4021-b600-674718355574&pl=5&bt=7 Sports News by Fox Sports RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b01f65ba-7c3c-4871-a678-8bb8920ceec1&pl=5&bt=7 Sports Videos by Fox Sport RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c2d5cd3f-8424-4516-af4b-20cf5cbc33f0&pl=5&bt=7

Web Messenger Gadget             Search My Blog      Encarta Quote of the Day   Sports Videos by Fox Sports

As some of you may know, the BlogWorld and New Media Expo conference is taking place this Thursday and Friday in Las Vegas, NV.  

Windows Live will have a booth there, where Becky, Charles, and I will be demoing Windows Live Writer and Windows Live Spaces.  In addition, I will be speaking on Friday afternoon at 3pm.

The conference has some great speakers and lots of interesting panels so we hope to see you there.  If you are able to make it, definitely stop by our Windows Live booth (#528) and say hello in person.

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Writer

Raise your hand if you’re directionally challenged like me!  Ask Mike – he’s been a witness to my ineptitude since well before our days at Microsoft.  I’m useless without printed directions from Live Search Maps or Live Search for Windows Mobile phones.  Therefore, I feel the need to highlight some of the ways the Maps team and Windows Live Events are going to save my butt:

• Help guests pinpoint your house
• Find a local place to have a party
• Print driving directions or send them to your phone

Jay
Product Manager, Windows Live Events

* Right now, the Live Search Maps features described in this post are available in English-speaking markets only

Help guests pinpoint your house

If you’re organizing an event and you know ahead of time where it’s going to be held, it’s really easy to add a map to the event website for your guests:

• Go to the Create Event page for a new event or the Event details page for an existing event.
• In the Location name field, type a friendly name for the location like “Our house” or “Algonquin Park.”
• Type the known address into the Address field.
• Click Add map and check out the map to your event from Live Search Maps.

That alone should be useful, but have you ever noticed that when you use popular mapping services, they don’t necessarily put the pushpin on the right house on your street?  Forget it if you’re on a cul de sac.  That’s because mapping services tend to make a best guess where to put the pushpin based on the number of your house as it relates to which block the house is on.  For example, if I live on 750 Main Street, mapping services guess that my house is directly centered within the 700-800 block and show the pushpin there.   Basically, they