I have been using the beta of Windows Live Writer since it was released and I noticed last week that they had finally reached a full release version a few weeks ago.

To be quite honest, it has totally changed my blogging habits.  I use the WordPress blogging engine and Windows Live Writer has made me at least 10 times more productive than using the native WordPress blog entry creation tool.  I have WLW open most of the time in case I have a sudden

Not only is WLW easy to use, but the addition of an open API that would allow developers to create plugins that further enhance its capabilities.

Since many of my articles revolve around development using a variety of languages, I often find it necessary to include programming code snippets into my articles.  I use the following plugins to give me that functionality:

Paste from Visual Studio

Code Snippet plugin for Windows Live Writer

Issues

I really haven't had any issues with WLW until the production release.  Most of my work is one on "development" servers which are running Windows 2003 Server.  This is usually where I have WLW installed.  Unfortunately, the production release of WLW will not install on Windows Server, which I am assuming they deem to be a security risk.  This will make my blog posting a bit more cumbersome since I'll have to write the article from my Vista workstation and, I guess, RDP into my serve to pull code and screen shots.  Oh well, the path of progress.

If you're blogging and not using WLW, I suggest you give it a try and see what you think.