Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

UPDATE:

I saw that it doesn’t overwrite anything so I installed it.

First problem - when I entered the key - it didn’t allow copy and paste so I had to write the key down and enter it manually.  It was rejected.  Then I realized it wanted the dashes to be input manually between the 5-digit clumps.  That worked.

Then I started Media Expression and opened one of my old iView Media Pro catalogs.  It immediately crashed…  XP still stable, but Media Expression wanted to know whether I wanted to send this to MS or not…

However, as I say - my old version of iView still works fine.

* * *

Last year, iView Media Pro was bought by Microsoft. Today I received an email with a free* upgrade to Microsoft Media Expression. There are now many flavors of what used to be iView. Here is a link to Microsoft Expression Menu.

You’ve got your Expression Blend, your Expression Web, Expression Design, and what I’m entitled to - Expression Media. Oh that’s right - there’s one more: Expression Studio which includes all of the above.

Yikes.

Since I hardly know what each one is supposed to do, I’m not going to yell, bloated software. But I did need an antacid after navigating to their FAQ page.

The real question - should I bite the bullet and do the upgrade from iView Media Pro to Media Expression? I guess I will - after doing a good backup of the current setup.

As a note - the iView catalog and templates are the basis for my current shopping cart - and all web galleries.

* Free (no extra money, but how much time? and am I losing or gaining functionality?)