After installing the new Windows Live Toolbar, I installed some of the add-ins that I usually wouldn’t. Things like the Phishing Filter, Games and the Windows Live Favorites. I’m not sure when Live Favorites was refreshed, but the new version is much better. It support both folders and tags – previously it just supported folders. There’s a reason why tagging has taken off – it makes sense to people. I started using Live Favorites but gave up because the folder approach is so much less flexible.

The other new feature is that the Live Favorites Add-in now sync’s your local favorites with your Live Favorites. Not sure how that will work if you primarily use tags on Live Favorites, but I guess I’ll see.

Finally, Live Favorites can be shared, but there doesn’t appear to be any way to search shared favorites. Am I missing something?

Now that I’m back in the office with an external monitor, I’m able to use my laptop again. While I was waiting for the help desk tech to show up, I installed the new Live Toolbar. I was immediately thrown however, because it comes with basically no default installed features. It was strange to have to install basic features like tabbed browsing and desktop search. On the other hand, it was nice not to have the previously default features that I don’t use uninstalled (i.e. popup blocker, form fill, msn extensions). There needs to be a better first-run experience that presents the user a list of options to install (along with the standard ones pre-selected). Otherwise, so far so good.