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Monday 7 May 2012

Windows Live Writer won't start or open?







If Windows Live Writer won't launch, it can be a heart-sinking experience if you depend on it as much as I do - it's the best free blogging tool I know.

For me, trying to "repair" Windows Live Essentials via the Control Panel Programs and Features didn't work to get WLW to open again. Nada, not even an error message.

Here's how to fix it when Windows Live Writer stops working, or at least some steps to try:

  1. Open up Windows Explorer or Computer.
  2. In the address bar at the top, type or paste the following (not case-sensitive), then hit Enter or the right arrow:
    %AppData%\Windows Live Writer\

  3. You'll see folders like these:


  4. Open the LinkGlossary folder. Copy the linkglossary.xml file there, then paste it somewhere you can find it again, as backup in case.

  5. Now delete the linkglossary.xml file from the LinkGlossary folder. (Thanks to Scott Lovegrove).
  6. Try opening WLW again. If that doesn't work, try opening the Keywords folder, and deleting all the files inside that folder that start with 'keyword..'.
  7. I also found a registry fix - see this link (scroll down)

For me, step 6 didn't work, but step 5 solved the problem for me, so I didn't need to try step 7.

1 comment:

Grund said...

While I realize your post is three years old but thought this would help someone else.

I wanted to start posting to my blog again but after installing Live Writer, it would not start. I gave some sort of .net error.

I fought for two days. My laptop is a company machine. So had company settings, one of those was Folder Redirection.

Folder Redirection is where the company admin redirects you folders to a network location to be backed up instead of the default location on your local hard drive.

I got a script from Microsoft and set them to back to default, hit the Live Writer icon and waited... then bam! "What is the name of your blog" came up. I was very happy.

Hope this helps someone else.

~dan