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How to create your own MSDN blog and link it with Windows Live Writer

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After working in Microsoft for almost 3 years, finally I decided to get my own blog to celebrate my first important work at ADX in China. But searching through the setting I cannot see any place that allowed me to click the “Create Blog” button!

Reminder: I was later reminded that only Microsoft FTE can create a MSDN blog, so this blog is probably not that interesting to everyone.  

Searching online, I found this article from another softie and it was helpful so I thought I should share it as well.

Create a MSDN blog

  1. Go to http://blogs.msdn.com/create-blog.aspx
  2. In Blog Name, you have your once-in-a-lifetime chance to specify a name for your blog. It is going to the address for your blog (i.e. blogs.msdn.com/b/your-specified-name). However, I created my first blog by typing a random name and realized that a MSDN blog is not removable!
  3. After clicking the Create button, you would get your own blog!

However, MSDN blog is not as manageable as other blogging services like WordPress. And it is unimaginable that anyone would not use a blog editor to post blog. For that matter, Windows Live Writer comes to my mind as the natural choice. However, trying to hook WLW with MSDN blog is not as easy as 1-2-3.

When I tried to add MSDN blog account to WLW as “Other Services”, it prompted me for:

  • My blog address (so blogs.msdn.com/b/isaacy)
  • User name & Password

You would think, that the MSDN blog account would be linked to the MSDN account, which uses Live ID. But I was totally wrong on that. Searching online again I found this MSDN forum post: Windows Live Writer Fails When Connecting to blogs.msdn.com.

It turns out that MSDN blog account and MSDN account (Live ID) are two separate things! And you are expected to specify another unique password for MSDN blog (and add another password to the list of stuff that I would need to remember). The forum post said that the account name is the account name appeared on the top right corner of the page. But again, this was not applicable to my case. After play with this for a little while, finally I figured out the easiest way to get this done.

  1. Go to “Setting” – “Change Password”, say that you forget the password and ask for the password in email.
  2. After you receive the email, click the “Reset Password” link, and specify your password.
  3. In WLW – “Publish: Add blog account”, type:
  1. Your blog address
  2. Your LIVE ID account name! (yes! your_name _at_ hotmail _dot_ com! it’s not your “ABC [MSFT]” name!
  3. Your reset password

WLW would then try to configure the account. After everything is setup, then you’re on track to write your first blog post!

Have a good time blogging!

Isaac