Those who signed Lovegrove's petition also pleaded for Live Writer's survival.

"Please don't kill the best blogging software on the planet," said one signer.

Windows Live Writer is an orphan of sorts, since it is a local application -- users download it from Microsoft's website and run it on their PCs -- and is no longer linked to an online service: in the fall of 2010, telling the 30 million users to migrate to WordPress.

Microsoft's response to questions about Live Writer's future was first delivered on Twitter through a company account.

"Windows Live Essentials apps, such as Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, & Writer will work great on Windows 8," stated the account today.