Backup Offline Installers For All Windows Live Essentials Beta Programs After Download

Recently, Microsoft released all the programs under their windows live essentials beta pack. Windows Live essentials beta pack includes a variety of programs which lets you do various things

      

The programs which are included in windows live essentials beta pack are:

• Windows Live Messenger
• Windows Mail
• Windows Live Writer
• Windows Live Photo Gallery
• Silverlight
• Windows Movie Maker Beta
• Family Safety
• Windows Live Toolbar For Internet Explorer

When ever you want to download any of these programs who will need to first download a single web installer called wlsetup-web_2.exe which runs an installation wizard in which you can select which programs you need to install.

This small web installer actually download the offline installer which can be backed up and install programs on another computers which does need to be connected to internet in order to install these programs.

We will tell you how can you backup the downloaded installers for the specific programs from the system hidden folders after using web installer for installing these programs once.

Let’s see where does windows live essentials beta pack stores the individual installer for all these programs which can be backed up and used as a standalone installer.

As the offline installers for all the programs of windows live essentials beta pack are downloaded inside the system hidden folders created by the web installer, so in order to view these installers you will need to show hidden files and folders and show and also need to uncheck the tick for Hide protected operating system files) in the View tab of Folder Options

After setting the show hidden files and folders browse to the following path:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\

(Assuming C drive is where windows is installed)

The files cache.ini stores the location of all the offline installers downloaded for the list of programs which you had selected in Windows Live Web Installer

Below is the path for the standalone offline installers for all the programs like windows live writer, windows live messenger, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker etc.

Path For Windows Live Messenger Standalone Installer

Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\6ab7ab391c95fb2
Name=Messenger.msi

Path For Windows Live Writer Standalone Installer

Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\8c219ee21c95fb6
Name=Writer.msi

Path For Windows Movie Maker Beta Standalone Installer

Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\9781b821c95fb7
Name=Movie Maker Beta

Similarly you can locate all the offline installers for the specific windows live essentials beta programs and other folders or just by seeing the cache.ini file    

Note: In order to make these installers work properly make sure to run these msi which I have listed below.

1. Contacts.msi (Contacts)
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\536fe26a1c95faf
Name=Contacts.msi

2. dw20shared.msi (DW 2.0 Client)
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\6499c2e01c94a99
Name=dw20shared.msi

3. crt.msi (Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime)
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache\3b52f2c51c95faf
Name=crt.msi