We’re excited to announce that WordPress.com is now the default blogging platform for Windows Live Spaces users. We’ve worked with our partners at Microsoft to create a simple migration service for Spaces bloggers to easily bring all their posts, comments, and photos to WordPress.com.
Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress.com. To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress.com blog when they choose to create a new blog.
All current links to your Windows Live Spaces blog will automatically redirect to your new WordPress.com blog after you set it up. In addition, this redirect we’ve set up will maintain your current traffic levels from search engines, as it automatically notifies search engines that your content has a new home on WordPress.com (the technical background on the 301 redirect method we’re using, if you’re interested, is here).
As part of this project, we’ve added support for Messenger Connect as a Publicize option, which enables you to automatically share updates to your WordPress.com blog with your friends who use Windows Live Messenger.
For detailed information on how the migration will work, check out this post on the Windows Live blog.
We’re very happy that Microsoft chose WordPress.com as their preferred new blogging service for Windows Live users. It’s a sign of how strong WordPress.com has become, and credit for that goes to every one of you who’s been creating here.
Getting the most out of WordPress.com
For Windows Live Spaces bloggers who are new to WordPress.com, we wanted to share a few tips for getting up and running with your new WordPress.com blog.
Learn WordPress.com
Get started with WordPress.com with this fun 10-step guide to becoming a blogging hero. We cover everything from the basics like creating your first post, through advanced topics like working with social tools.
WordPress.tv
Check out “How To” videos on just about every feature of WordPress.com on the WordPress community video site.
Support
If you need a little more help, make sure to browse our extensive support knowledge base, and get in touch with the friendly WordPress.com support team, known around here as the Happiness Engineers. You can also get user-to-user help on our support forums.
WordPress.com News 
Holy cow!
Wow! This is fantastic news! It really shows how sophisticated and mature the WordPress platform has become.
Wow, this is really great for WordPress and also exciting to see the amount of new content that this will bring.
Will my Windows Live Spaces be deleted immediately once I move over to WordPress?
Once the migration is complete, everything is redirected over to your new WordPress.com site. If you want an archive of your space, you should grab a zipfile export from WLS before starting the migration process.
Will the migration preserve the post creation date that appear in Windows Live?
Yes; your post creation dates will carry over to your WordPress.com site.
This has to be good news for the future of Windows Live Writer which has always worked well with WordPress despite being created for Windows Live Spaces.
Great news! Now more people in the WordPress community! More visitors perhaps.
Wonder how this is going to affect the internal code base of Windows Live. All of wordpress code is GPLed and enforced by it’s dictator.
Can Microsoft engineers (by contract) even look at GPL code? Wouldn’t they be getting “too many ideas” from the extraordinary genius in the wordpress code base?
Big win for WordPress.com nonetheless, with the user base of Windows Live (whatever it might be) they’re now the biggest player in the blog authoring landscape of the internet.
Great job, WordPress! You’re the best!
Finally, I can have all my blog entries in one place. Already imported them to my current blog, and now I’m just tagging and updating wherever I see fit.
Thank you so much for this feature.
As always, you think of everything. This is an amazing place to write, and have blogs. Thanks!
Congratulations, WordPress! Wish you a smooth transition to all these new blogs.
This has been a beautiful surprise to me. 🙂
Excellent, now everybody would be WordPressing!
Congratulations to all at WordPress! And a big hefty welcome to all you Spacers out there!
GREAT win of GPL and FLOSS movement and products too … since WordPress.com (and its foundations) is one of the best examples of the good that it produces 😉
Fantastic!!
Awesome! Let’s welcome our new community members..
Awesome! If only I had this opportunity when I migrated from Microsoft Spaces four years ago…
@everyone — on behalf of the Windows Live team, again we couldn’t be more excited about partnering with WordPress to give our 30MM bloggers and viewers an awesome upgrade to the best blogging platform in the world. And to give -all- WordPress.com bloggers an easy way to publicize their posts across Messenger, Hotmail, and the rest of Windows Live. These kind of “peanut butter and chocolate” moments is what it’s all about.
Amazing win for WP.com. I wonder how many millions of blogs you’re hosting now?
Great news, the quantity of users is what makes WordPress awesome, the more the merrier!
Lovely news! I love WordPress.
Congratulations WordPress! I love you!
A lot of Spaces users (writers and readers) are from China. Unfortunately WordPress.com is blocked in the PRC, so they’ll be missing out…
The latest reports we have are that we’re reachable from there right now.
Why are my albums in Windows Live Spaces gone after transerring to WordPress?
If your images were used within posts on your Windows Live Space, they will be imported into your WordPress.com site automatically.
If you had photos in your Windows Live Photos library that were not used on your site, those are not imported. You should still be able to log in to WIndows Live and find them. You can continue to use them in the future.
Cool, will there also be a new WordPress client for Windows Phone 7?
Great! I love WordPress!
WordPress ! I love you more day by day ~
Brilliant addition …
Good news for wordpress.
Lately Microsoft’s been getting better lol I haven’t been let down by them since Windows 7’s arrival, never thought I’d say that.
Congratulations to both Windows Live and WordPress!! This will allow for more exciting services!! 🙂 excellent move! just don’t mess up the transition! 😛 🙂
If I have both a Live Spaces blog and a WP.com blog, will there be a way to combine the 2?
If you already have a WordPress.com blog, you will be asked when you begin the upgrade process if you would like to import your Live Spaces content into one of your existing WordPress.com blogs or create a new one.
How can I transfer WordPress space back to Windows Live Space?
It’s not possible to go back to Windows Live Spaces. The move to WordPress.com is permanent.
If you’re running into trouble with your WordPress.com site, please check out our Support resources for more information and help.
Great news for WordPress!
Wow what a surprise & great news at the same time! 🙂
I have a blog at spaces since five years and this one here. I love my blog at spaces since I can have both my photos, and my music playing in a mediaplayer and I have my lists with all my music and other stuff, so I think it`s complete, but as I understand I can`t keep neither my photo albums nor my mediaplayer so I`m very sad. Even if there has been some trouble now and then during these years, I must say I haven`t found any other blogging place that can match the space blog.
I do hope that you will let me have ny mediaplayer. Now and then I`m writing about music and I will have the possibilities to play the music which will be the best for that special day.
Please ?
Thanks! 😉
Congrats and welcome windows live spaces bloggers :D.
way to go WordPress !!!
Oh yep! Never thought Microsoft would do this!
It’s awesome how WordPress is connecting to all the bloggers in the world!
Hiya folks! Just caught your post here tonight. (Been out all day)! Any chance we can still use Live Writer for blogging, or is that being derailed?
Actually, I’m glad to get this update – I used to use Live Spaces for everything but have been here for perhaps a couple of months, now, so thanks for writing and updating us all. I can remember some ruffled feathers on Spaces – loads of people were worried it would be shutting down. Shame, that. I started there and have many fond memories. It’s good to see some of you from MSFT on here. Glad you’re enjoyihng it:-) Regards, Jen
You can definitely keep using Live Writer to post to WordPress.com: http://en.wordpress.com/windows-live-writer/
The more, the merrier!
Im a newbie here and have sucessfully added my 1st blog here, but what of my windows live groups, NSW truthtellers. how do i transfer that across from windows live to wordpress? i assumed that all my windows live stuff would be transferred like my photos etc? whats the go ?
There are no “groups” or “friends” here on WordPress.com, so those parts of Windows Live are not part of the upgrade process.
As far as your photos, if they were inserted into posts, they came with your blog, but if you were using the galleries in Windows Live Photos, you’ll still find your images there. They are not imported as part of the upgrade process.
I’m sorry but I’m curious how can my friends see any of my photos on WLS? My ex-url has gone. How can they check them out?
It depends on where your photos were. If they were part of your posts, they will be part of your posts here and you will find the images themselves in your Media Library.
If you are referring to your photo albums, they are not imported as part of the upgrade process. You can still find them in their Windows Live location at http://photos.live.com/. If you’d like to begin using galleries on WordPress.com, you should read this Support article. Note that images you upload to WordPress.com won’t appear anywhere unless you insert them into a post or page.
So you see, I’m proud to be a WordPress blogger!
That’s great news! …but let’s hope we can avoid that future scenario where WP is eventually bought out by Microsoft.
*shudder*
Really good news. WP is simply the best blogging platform out there. Even Microsoft is acknowledging that 🙂
welcome, windows live bloggers, then !
great news! I’m glad to hear this…
Yeah, just moved my Windows Live Spaces to here. Still getting familiar with the new interface and enviroment.
So far so good.
Will WordPress offer enough room for me to upload pictures? Just like skydrive on Windows Live Space?
I have 25G room on skydrive.
We offer 3GB of free space for uploads on WordPress.com. You can also purchase additional space upgrades (5, 15, or 25GB additional space): http://en.wordpress.com/products/
Hi Paul, hi everyone! I’m a stupid woman, I also study now how I can create my new cinema community here… And I’ll be happy if some of the cool professional web developers will help me…cause I need support and advice…I need to create my site in Russian and English… So, I’m learning the possibility to make a good site! I need to add database for the actors, upload some videos, photos, etc. I hope I’ll do it!
Have a nice week!
Thanks, now I don’t have to post on both wordpress and spaces.
This is great news for WordPress and Live Spaces users. I wonder how my old posts would look like on wp… 🙂
wow more people coming to WordPress then! 🙂
Hey, I just moved my windows space to wordpress.
I found my blog is already redirected to the new wordpress blog I created. But I still want to visit my old space before Mar 2011 when the migration is finally done.
It is really a heart-breaking process losing my old Windows Space that I have been creating over the past many years. Is there anyway I can retrieve my old Space?
Any help will be very appreciated!!!!
Once the migration is begun, your old Windows Live Space becomes a redirect to your new home. There’s no way to reverse the process or shut off the redirect.
Hi,
But what about all the cool people who have Apple computers?!
Official status from Microsoft is great news for WordPress! Congratulations!
WordPress rocks … how long before Google throws in the towels or buys you guys out?
Way to go WordPress!
Congratulations! And: Welcome to WordPress.com everyone. 😉
Great stuff. Welcome aboard Windows Live users. You’ll love WordPress.
Wow!! Great news.. Welcome, Windows Live bloggers!
Cool. I don’t like Live Space’s original blogging service. However, it may be worse for Chinese bloggers to migrate from Live Space to WordPress, because I understand WordPress is blocked by GFW, isn’t it?
The latest information we have says that WordPress.com is available in China right now.
This is great, I have a Window Spaces blog, that I don’t use, because I use wordpress. I might move some of my posts over.
I wonder after the migration, how my old MSN folks can visit my new blog here. Do they need to register on WordPress too?
After you migrate, your old Live Spaces URL automatically redirects all traffic over to your new WordPress blog for you.
Welcome to all of you! 🙂
Hi, I really really regret that I moved — all my albums disappeared!!! I know now I can only check the photos at live.photo, but I REALLY DONT LIKE THIS WAY! Is there a way for me to return to windows live? Can you help me stop the redirection on my domain address?!!!!!!!!
You guys didn’t say anything about the album and this is unacceptable!! I need help!!
Photo albums are not moved as part of the migration because they weren’t actually part of your blog on Windows Live Spaces—they were a completely different service.
Because Windows Live Spaces will be closing permanently at the end of the upgrade window, the change to WordPress.com is likewise permanent and cannot be reversed.
If you’d like to learn how you can add photo galleries to your WordPress.com site, you can read here.
next step: wordpress for Yahoo!, Facebook, Multiply…
Congratulations you guys, wordpress.com. I am maintaining 3 blogs over 3 different platforms: Windows Live Spaces, WordPress.com and Blogger. After a very short time, my wordpress.com blog became preferred choice among the options and my primary blog to sell cosmetics, thanks to it being easy-to-use, high performance and lots of cool features that I can utilize, and the most important thing is that wordpress.com blog is very friendly with search engines 🙂
Thanks for the answer, (Paul Kim). I already have Writer so I’ll just keep it rollin’;-)
Thats great news!
I am glad to see this revelation. My last blogging service was Windows Live Spaces, but soon found it to be rather limited. I spent some time setting up, learning and creating my own WordPress Blog using my own domain on a hosted server and found some great addins, plugins, and decent support.
Good for you guys. And for us too, since I’m sure there will be a lot more users around to read stuff. I use Linux though.
Is the not any way to get a guestbook i WP?
I am new to WP..came from LiveSpace.
I read that WP.com does not have plugins, is this true?
WordPress.com does not have a guestbook feature, no.
WordPress.com does not have plugins, but for functions similar to the Modules you had on Windows Live Spaces, you can check out our widgets by going to Appearance > Widgets in your new site Dashboard.
i really really need your help now…i used msn spaces for 5 years…and try to download everything from my space to my computer today…the problem is that i can only open the first page of it….when i try to see more of my diary…it says This Windows Live Space is no longer available.
and there is nothing on my wordpress space….except the same name…..
is there any possible you guys can help me to get my space back?
here is the address:hkseven.spaces.live.com
i cant open it right now….everything is gone….feel so sad about it….please help me….
Hello,
If you are running into a problem with the migration process, can you please contact our Happiness Engineers? They will be happy to look into the problem and help you complete the migration to WordPress.com.
While this partnership is clearly a feather in WordPress’s cap (and well done to them), as a now ex-Windows Live Spaces user, I think customer relations could have been better handled by Microsoft.
I think many of us have felt in Mushroom Mode (kept in the dark) since services started being withdrawn without notice from WLS back in mid-year. At least now the reason is clear, but it could, and should, have been better handled.
Just want to welcome everybody from WLS. I’ve used several blogging platforms before WordPress. Even though my own blog is a self-hosted WordPress now but I have a joined blog with my best friends on WordPress.com. I keep on being impressed at what we can do with both so I think, when it comes to blogging, WordPress is the best! 🙂
Newblog, Newworld, New Challenges!
What is going to happen to SkyDrive and Workspaces. I had convenient modules for them on my LiveSpace site. Is this possible here, too?
There are currently no widgets that would take the place of the modules you were using for either of those Windows Live products. The services will still be available through Windows Live, but at this time there’s no way to integrate them with your WordPress.com site.
Awesome! Great news!
It’s really great to be here.. But still to new here and just try hard to learn wordpress!
…and I will say “I started blogging with wordpress even before they became famous” Rock on! WP, you rock so good.
Why is my migration taking such a long time (over an hour now and still not finished)? And when people go to my “old” Windows Live Space they get an error message. This is handled very poorly.
Hello,
The imports take a short while to get started (depending on how many are waiting to get started), but should complete rather quickly. Yours appears to already be completed; please check out your WordPress.com site. Contact us at Support if you’ve experienced any problems on the other side of the upgrade.
Sounds impressive especially if it is able to accurately preserve everything – but sadly several months too late for me as I have now painstakingly manually recreated my Live Spaces blog here on WordPress.com. However, a big welcome to those migrating across. You will find a vastly superior blogging platform.
As for the concerns about no guestbook – just do as I did and create a page called guestbook, link into your menu, add some welcome text, and allow comments!
wow!! great news, although i already switched my blog from windows live space to wordpress long ago