It was a great leap forward once the ability to downsize any selection of photos directly from explorer was included in Windows (without having to find a separate down-sizer). Even Nanna and Poppa could do it..
XP and OE come to mind. They had their issues, but eventually were ironed out over the years.
Then came WLM
Windows Live Mail 2011 has caused a lot of users to tear their collective hair out trying to the simplest of things.. send a few down-sized photos as an email attachment…
The most succinct post (of many) describing the solution is:
http://www.winvistatips.com/re-sending-pictures-wlm11-t830132.html
In summary – WLM sends just a thumbnail of the images you want to send, and uploads the full high resolution image to the user’s Skydrive – available to all Windows Live accounts. The recipient of the email can then view the “Slideshow” by clicking on a link to look at the online version of the full size images stored on Skydrive.
We all know NOT to click on links in emails….
The SOLUTION?
Right-click on the selected photos as usual, select send to mail recipient and re-size as wanted
Once it comes up as a photo e-mail – here’s the trick – hit view slideshow in the e-mail window
A Photo album tools tab will now appear. Hit the format tab. Click on the paper-click (attachment) icon, and they will now be switched to attachments, at their re-sized resolutions
Here’s the kicker:
You need to have a WindowsLive account setup and logged in once for this to work.
Click on the paperclip once you have logged in to WL to attach photos the old fashioned way 
To use the plain WindowsLive email program, no Windows Live account is needed, but without signing up to yet another service, sending photos becomes near impossible – to the point of completely jamming up the outbox – with an error that requires you to delete the “Email Photo and try again”!
Grrr..
