How to disable Skydrive and photo album in WLM 2011

All i want is my ability to send pictures via windows explorer with the right click feature, then to resize them and then send them. Now when it gets ready to send it says some stuff about Skydrive, about some photo album and wants me to log in somewhere. I don't want any of that. I want the old tried and true method I had under plain jane Windows Mail before. How do I make WLM 2011 behave like the old WM? I just want to select, resize and send the way it used to work under WM!!!!!

To send pictures the way WM or OE did it, don't use Photo Email. Remember "Photo Email" means you are NOT sending the photo by email. (Instead Photo Email sends the full resolution photo to Sky Drive with only a thumbnail link to it in the email.) To avoid that just "attach" the photo or "insert" the photo in line with the text in the message body.

I know you want a direct answer. You cannot "rigth click" and attach the emails to Widows Live Mail 2011. I strongly dislike not being able to do this as well. I don't like Skydrive, I don't like photo albums. Right clicking on one or using Ctrl and click to choose multiple images was a "piece of cake" when using Sendto.

Microsoft, please give us back the Right Click - Sendto - Mail Recipient and attach the emails without all the fuss with Skydrive and Photo Albums. Those features cause more hassles than they are worth.

I too am very unhappy with this turn of events. I use to be able to resize my pictures in my Canon camera software, click on email in that program and send pictures to family that weren't so large they couldn't open them. Now when I try to use the camera software, the email opens and puts the pictures full sized into Sky Drive. I already put my pics on Flickr and am quite happy with that. I certainly don't need another place to put things.

One really ought to have the option to either opt out or disable Sky Drive

susaw said:

... I certainly don't need another place to put things. One really ought to have the option to either opt out or disable Sky Drive.

Note that just because you have Skydrive doesn't mean you have to "put things" in it. You can still "insert" and "attach" photos as you did before and Skydrive won't be involved. The new problem with 2011 is the default action for the right click option is to use Skydrive. Skydrive is used whenever you choose "Photo Email" instead of "attach" or "insert".

I understand that if you have Windows Live Photo Gallery installed as well, you can use it's right-click option instead:

"(A.) Live Photo Gallery (one or more pictures)
1. Open Photo Gallery
2. Select picture(s)
- use the Control key to choose another folder in WLPG to view and select another folder's pictures
3. Click drop down arrow on the Photo Email option and choose the item 'Send photos as attachments'

(B.) Explorer (one picture)
1. Select a single picture
2. Rt Click and Choose Preview (opens WLPG viewer)
3. Click Photo Email down arrow and choose the option to 'Send photos as attachments'."

( //news.annexcafe.com/annexcafe.general.windowslivemail ; the post is called "Subject: WLM 2011 - Photo Email vs Attachments and then some...")

The problem isn't being able to insert or attach photos, I know how to do that. The problem is that I take my pictures in large format so I can print them out later and have good resolution. But, I send some of them to family by email and want them to be reasonable size or lower resolution. I do this by using the software which came with my camera and is very easy to use. I used to be able to click once, have them resize, click on an email link in the software program and have them attached or inserted (whichever I wanted) into Windows Live Mail at the lower resolution, and then send them without having to save them at the lower resolution thereby creating two versions of my pictures.

Now with SkyDrive it appears that I will have to resize, save a lower resolution version of the picture along with the high resolution I already have and then go into Live Mail and attach or insert them.

It is just a nuisance that I don't want which takes more steps, more memory and I find it very annoying. What I'd like to do is be able to just send the pictures the way I've always sent them.

Susaw

Actually it seems to me that Microsoft had your purpose in mind when they created Photo Email. More people are taking pictures that have fairly large file sizes but don't want to be bothered with software just to send people a copy of the picture. But if they simply send it, in full rez, it would clog up the mail, requiring long download times for each recipient. Also, many email servers limit the size of uploaded emails. So the idea of photo email is to automatically send a thumbnail image (or images) in the body of the email and put the full rez images on Skydrive. (Without the email file size limits.) Now the recipient gets to see many images quickly in the email and if he/she wants a better view of some they just click on them and download those images. You don't need to use software anymore at all. Just save the large images and use Photo Email to send them to others.

There is a way to send emails with photos From Windows Explorer on WLM 2011

Because Windows Explorer is forcing Photo mail in WLM 2011 you have to despite the program settings.

When selecting the images to send, include a non-image file. This could just be a dummy.txt file that should be in the same folder.

To create that non image file to the photo folder just Right click the window that has the photos and then New--> Text Document

Select your photos including the non-image file RIght click again pick Send to--> Mail recipient you'll still get the option to resize the images, but they'll end up attached rather than a photo mail. You can then Right click the dummy.txt file and REMOVE it from the message before sending.

car said:

There is a way to send emails with photos From Windows Explorer on WLM 2011...

Very clever and welcome to the forum.

Here is another idea from the folks at the WLM newsgroup on the news.annexcafe.com server called annexcafe.general.windowslivemail:

In the message composition window, select a photo shown in the Photo e-mail to reveal the Photo Email Tools/Format and click the paperclip to change a photo e-mail to one with attachments.

I haven't tested this myself (still using the previous version of WLM). I'm also not sure if resizing is still possible.