The best that "Windows Live Solution Center" can do?

I just had to pass this on to those in my family and friends with whom I have been sharing photo uploads of old family photos as I am scanning them into my PC and sharing them online.

I have been using a program called Photo Gallery, which comes with Windows Live Essentials for free.  In my opinion the program runs great, has many wonderful features such as its category tagging, people tagging, date tagging and descriptions all of which are brought with the files once they are published online. 

I have no complaints with it at all, even though I am using an older version due to the fact that for many reasons (too many to detail here) I am forced to remain with Windows XP for the time being.  After all it is free and I love the way it integrates online with my friends and family contacts.

I have been uploading my photos to Windows Live Skydrive, (you can upload to most any site you want with Photo Gallery), because all the features integrate seamlessly and take full advantage of the tagging.  One of the advantages of my uploading them onto Windows Live Skydrive has been my ability to choose to share these notifications and links of these uploads on my "Messenger Social Stream" which alerts my contacts and those tagged in the photos of my recent photos.  The "Messenger Social Stream" has the ability to pull social updates from other sites such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and many more as well as post your Window Live (Messenger, Skydrive, etc) updates to those sites.  So you have one place just pooling all these streams.  Since I have Facebook and other sites linked to my "Messenger Social Stream" my alerts have also been relayed to those other sites as well.  This has worked flawlessly for some time and has been a great benefit.

I know you may say, just use Facebook, flicker or some photo storage site because they have similar features.  I like Skydrive because it truly is just a storage location as in just having an online server based hard drive.  It's not berated with constant ads and I don't have to deal with some clunky photo organization system or display format in which to view my albums.  I pretty much organize my file as I like, as I would on my own computer.  I also don't want to find my photos tied to some social networking site/s, with privacy tendencies, that may be precarious at best, and that I may later choose to leave and find myself faced with my entire photo uploads having been for nothing.  I really just want a place to store and share them where I have control over their accessibility.

Anyway, my point of this post is that my friends and family may have noticed that, although I had recently been posting photos, there have not been anymore photo alerts for them lately.  Well, it's not because I have ceased with my scanning or uploads.  It's because the Skydrive suddenly stopped relaying the alerts to the "Messenger Social" stream and thus my Facebook, etc. streams.  It turns out that I am not the only one who has lost this functionality as the Windows Live's support site's forums have had a number of people noting this in their own complaints.  It would appear that there is a problem with their sharing streams from a number of features of Skydrive. 

Now this sharing capability has always been one of the main selling points of Skydrive and a benefit of using a Windows Live profile which includes the "Messenger Social" stream, so you would think this would be a rather high priority feature for which they would want to find a quick resolution.  Also, take into consideration that all these Windows Live sites that work in conjunction with one another are all part of a system that is put in place by a name like Microsoft whose reputation is at stake and a system upon which the next upcoming version of Windows (Windows 8) will largely be basing its functionality.  You would think this would also make it a major concern for the solution center, let alone an embarrassment and potential promotional nightmare for Microsoft and their next Windows version.

However, I received what appears to be a final solution to the problem that is down right laughable and pathetic in its conclusion.  I do not understand how they could possibly offer the final response that I received, especially given the fact that these systems are intended to be the basis of the "Future of Windows 8".  I have read other people's forum threads to see what, if any, response they may have received and they are receiving the same response as the one I received. 

I am simply posting a copy of my actual correspondence with the "Windows Live Solution Center" and my moderator so you can witness for yourself.

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Photos uploaded to my SkyDrive are no longer shared on my Live Profile's "messenger social" stream.

Sunday, October 30, 2011 10:51 AM

Primekid

Question Summary

Other Windows Live Profile issues

Please provide your impacted Email address :

<not displayed>

Please provide your Windows Live Profile URL :

http://profile.live.com/cid-6d729b9f91895b8a/

Additional Details

I have been uploading photos to my SkyDrive storage space for many years now and my photos have been shared with my Windows Live Profile’s “messenger social stream” successfully, just as I would like.

I have recently been digitizing a large number of old photos and uploading them to my SkyDrive storage space and the photos have continued to be shared with my profiles social stream just as usual.  That is until about October 27, 2011, when I paused with my current project of uploading photos.

As of about October 28, 2011, when I resumed uploading photos to my SkyDrive storage space, I noticed that the photos are no longer shared with my profile’s “messenger social stream” at all.  This remains the case to this day, October 30, 2011.

I have checked and re-verified the privacy and sharing settings of my Live Profile page to ensure that they are in accordance with sharing photos from my SkyDrive to my profile’s social stream, even though I had made no changes to the settings prior to this behavior.

My family and friends have been observing my recent photo uploads to my SkyDrive storage from my profile’s “messenger social stream” and have been enjoying them immensely.  I have an extremely large number of photos remaining that I intend to upload and I would hate to have to inform my friends and family manually with each additional batch.  This photo sharing stream has been a real blessing in this regard.

I would greatly appreciate your assistance in addressing this issue so that I might regain this functionality.

Thank you,

Kalon Reeves

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011 10:03 AM

Windows Live Roniel D.

Hi Kalon,
I have made some adjustments to your account that usually fixes this kind of issue. Please verify if the issue persists.

Thanks,
Windows Live Roniel D.
Rate this moderator

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011 10:41 AM

Primekid

Thank you for your response and assistance.
I uploaded a single photo and then checked the status after about 10 minutes.
The problem persists.
I then uploaded a batch of 18 photos and again checked after a few minutes. 
The problem does still persist.
Kalon Reeves

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Thursday, November 03, 2011 8:35 AM

Windows Live Roniel D.

Hi Kalon,

I'm sorry for the inconvenience that this issue have caused you. Sadly to say, SkyDrive updates that are appearing in messenger social is no longer available.
Thank you.
Windows Live Roniel D.
Rate this moderator

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Thursday, November 03, 2011 9:12 AM

Primekid

Seriously?  That's it? 
That is actually Windows Live Solution Center's official final solution?

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