Windows Live is now an OpenID Provider

Shared by Moah

OpenID is starting to get traction. Athought the UI still needs to be improved, I hope it takes off.

The second most interesting announcement out of PDC this morning is that Windows Live ID is becoming an OpenID Provider. The information below explains how to try it out and give feedback to the team responsible.

Try It Now. Tell Us What You Think

We want you to try the Windows Live ID OpenID Provider CTP release, let us know your feedback, and tell us about any problems you find.

To prepare:

Go to https://login.live-int.com and use the sign-up button to set up a Windows Live ID test account in the INT environment.

Go to https://login.live-int.com/beta/ManageOpenID.srf to set up your OpenID test alias.

Then:

Users – At any Web site that supports OpenID 2.0, type openid.live-INT.com in the OpenID login box to sign in to that site by means of your Windows Live ID OpenID alias.

Library developers – Test your libraries against the Windows Live ID OP endpoint and let us know of any problems you find.

Web site owners – Test signing in to your site by using a Windows Live ID OpenID alias and let us know of any problems you find.

You can send us feedback at:

E-mail – openidfb@microsoft.com

This is awesome news. I’ve been interested in Windows Live supporting OpenID for a while and I’m glad to see that we’ve taken the plunge. Please try it out and send the team your feedback.

I’ve tried it out already and sent some initial feedback. In general, my feedback was on applying the lessons from the Yahoo! OpenID Usability Study since it looks like our implementation has some of the same usability issues that inspired Jeff Atwood’s rants about Yahoo’s OpenID implementation. Since it is still a Community Technology Preview, I’m sure the user experience will improve as feedback trickles in.

Kudos to Jorgen Thelin and the rest of the folks on the Identity Services team for getting this out. Great work, guys.

UPDATE: Angus Logan posted a comment with a link to the following screencast of the current user experience when using Windows Live ID as an OpenID provider experience