Organise your photographs and videos with the Windows Live Photo Gallery - Tutorial 1 - Install Live Photo Gallery

The Windows Live Photo Gallery is an excellent free tool for organising and sharing your photographs. Microsoft's recent advertising campaign has shown how easy it is for anyone to capture and enhance photos with this fun tool.

Note - Windows Vista Users - Your operating system comes with a tool called the Windows Photo Gallery. This tool has most of the features of the Windows Live Photo Gallery, but not all. We recommend you upgrade to the Windows Live Photo Gallery since the extra features it offers can be fun to use.

Installing the Windows Live Photo Gallery is really easy. Firstly, download the latest version from this page here. Follow the instructions given on the page to download and start the installation (or just save the file somewhere and then double click it). Windows Vista and Windows 7 users will need to grant permission for the installation to continue if prompted to do so by Windows User Account Control. Once the installation process has started, the following window will be displayed:-

Wait a few moments while the installer configures itself. When this is complete, the following window will appear:-

On this window, you can choose which Windows Live components to install. Make sure that "Photo Gallery" is ticked. Feel free to choose any of the other components too. We recommend against downloading the "Movie Maker Beta" module at this time, as the Movie Maker included with Windows is currently better than this version. Apart from this, feel free to choose as many extra components as you like, after all, they are all free.

When you have decided on the components to install, click on "Install". The following window will then appear:-

Wait while your chosen components are installed. This may take several minutes. When the process is complete the following window will appear:-

Three important choices to make on this window. Firstly, decide if you want Live Search to be your search provider. If you already use another search engine (such as Google), make sure to un-tick the first box and the second box.

Finally, you can opt into the customer improvement program that Microsoft operates. This will collect data from your computer as you use the program. Some users see this as an invasion of privacy, so if you are concerned about this, make sure NOT to tick the last box in this window.

When you have made your decisions, click on "Continue". The following window will then appear:-

Live Photo Gallery can automatically share your albums with your friends and family through Windows Live. If you want to use this feature, you'll need a Windows Live ID. If you need to sign up for a Windows Live ID, you can do so by clicking the "Sign up" link. If you already have a Hotmail e-mail account, or a MSN or Windows Live Messenger account, you can log into Photo Gallery with that. You can still use Windows Live Photo Gallery without a Live ID so if you don't want to make an account at this time, simply click "Close".

Photo Gallery is now installed and ready for use. You can run the Windows Live installation program again at any time to add any additional components you may require.