Following on from my post about Seaport.exe, one of Microsoft’s Live Writer software developers Joe Cheng has been in touch. Joe’s Whatever blog covers Live Writer in development and action and looking at the screenshots and integration with Twitter maybe I should give it another go. Joe also left a link to a blog on Windows Live Groups: http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/blog/cns/ and the screenshots / descriptions look impressive too. Readwriteweb says this is all about integration of our digital lives and yup don’t we need it. I’m going to explore a bit more as this whole area looks very tasty. The Battle of the Cloud is shaping up nicely in the social media, UI as well as Search space.
Tag: Battle of the Cloud
Noticed this morning after my PC ran to a crawl that a new app was running – seaport.exe. A quick Google (no I didn’t use Microsoft Live search) revealed that quite a few people thought is was spyware and even their tech advice advised so. However, it turns out that this thing lurking as seaport is actually a Microsoft app and more specifically a Search Enhancement one.
Far from being one of those loathers of the Redmond lot I was nevertheless a bit put out to learn this. It was apparently installed along with Windows Live Writer, an app which I installed but have so far not got on with – I’m typing this directly into Chrome. Either way, I hadn’t asked for this app and didn’t have a perceived need for it either. So some further searching revealed the basics on how to remove seaport.exe – see below.
The author of the piece a certain Mr or Ms Improbulus I duly thank. But what is Microsoft’s motive here. Ms Improbulus is in no doubt:
I know Microsoft are trying to catch up on the “browser as desktop” / “cloud computing” front especially after the release of Google’s Chrome browser, but forcing Office Live Add-in etc onto Windows users really isn’t the way to do it.
I fully agree with the latter sentiment. Also, if Microsoft is to catch up here, let alone take the lead in this battle of the cloud, then these sort of subterfuges are not the best way forward. Far better to court our cooperation with transparency and not quasi secret bundles.
Update: How to stop seaport.exe
Here’s the basics on stopping seaport.exe
For Vista go to Start and Start Search and enter “services.msc”
For XP go to Start Run
and enter “services.msc”
Click OK. Next you’ll get this screen pop up:
Scroll down do seaport.exe, right click and select Properties – a box like this will appear:
Go to Startup Type and select Disabled.
This should stop it hogging up your machine working.