windows essentials download changed live mail. now it has black panels

Hi todd706, welcome to 7F! :)

There may have been a Visual Studio Runtime corrupted in Windows Live Mail (WLM) when you installed Windows Movie Maker (WMM).

There is the possibility of a repair, and two ways to do it. You will not have an option to pick, and choose what to repair it will repair every Live program on your machine.

You should strongly consider backing up your contacts, accounts, and messages either though WLM How to Backup Windows Live Mail Accounts, Contacts and Messages or a third-party like KLS Mail Backup - Freeware Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Firefox backup

Okay, let's get started!

Option One
Go to: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features, and scroll down to, and right click on Windows Live Essentials. You will have the option to either uninstall/change, click on that pop-up.

• You should see a new window open that will allow you to either uninstall or repair Windows Live, click on the Repair Button then continue. It will take approximately two minutes to complete.

• When done the repair will ask you to restart your machine, do so after you close the repair window, and any other programs you may have open.

Option Two
If you see Run... Listed when you click on the Start Orb: it is usually at the bottom of the right hand panel. If you do not see Run.. I can tell you how to place it.

Type or copy/paste this CMD into the box to the right of Open:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Installer\wlarp.exe

• Click on OK, and wait a few seconds.

• Depending on your user account settings you may see a User Account Control box open, asking if you want this program (Windows Installer) to make changes to your machine, click on Yes.

• You should see a new window open that will allow you to either uninstall or repair Windows Live, click on the Repair Button then continue. It will take approximately two minutes to complete.

• When done the repair will ask you to restart your machine, do so after you close the repair window, and any other programs you may have open.

You may also want to consider running SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker after you do the repair, run it three times with re-starts in between each run even if each run reports no problems.

Your welcome.

Since the repair did not work, and you are considering removing Windows Essentials (WE), I would try doing a System Restore, that should take the worry out of whether or not your WLM will revert back to its original state. It will also remove WE. Just pick a time, and date to before you installed WE.

If you haven't already, make that backup of your contacts, accounts, and messages.

There has been much discussion about the newest version of WMM not being as good as the older WMM6 because Microsoft (MS) stripped a lot of functionality out of it.

As for alternatives to WMM for windows 7, do a search with those terms, and you will find a lot of alternatives even some that are open source.

Here are some that I found:
Windows Movie Maker Alternatives - Better Than Windows Movie Maker
list of free movie maker downloads
Movie Maker | Open Source Alternative - osalt.com

I am out of ideas. Have you seen this thread starting at post #7 ? Live Mail black panels!

Also: 5 Ways to Repair a Black Screen in Windows Live Mail 2011 | Computer Tips

Do a search for: live mail. now it has black panels