Although I’d love to take credit for writing about SkyDrive… I’ll let Chris take it. Go check out Windows Live SkyDrive over at LiveSide.

Check out Windows Live SkyDrive
Read SkyDrive blog
LiveSide’s post

LiveSide jumped on this story as soon as it broke, in the middle of the night UK time. Chris dude, please sleep. I do worry about your health at times. You’re a good bloke and I’ve known you for a good few years - please sleep once in a while

Windows Live Messenger 8.5
Nothing really new except this emoticon ““ which can be written as (’.') - oh, there seems to be some Windows Live Folders integration for when that’s out of beta, but that’s soon to come too, part of the Live Drive “cloud” of storage service. There’s a new theme as well, but that’s really all there is to it… there’s not even any added Aero support.
Download here or check out it’s beta web page.

Windows Live Mail
The new name for Windows Live Mail desktop, which will replace Outlook Express and Windows Mail in Windows Vista. It’s awfully confusing with all these mail applications that Microsoft have suddenly thrown at us all, but Windows Live Mail is meant to overtake everything that it’s previously made, allowing Hotmail accounts and Outlook accounts to be used in this new client.
Download here or check out it’s beta web page.

Windows Live Writer
The new way to blog to whichever blog site you have - whether it be Windows Live Spaces or Wordpress, you can add an entry with picture, map or video support. Fully extensible with plugins (some of the ones that Scott at LiveSide has made are brilliant), and it keeps everything in a nice tight-nit place.
Download here or check out it’s beta web page.

All of these products now have the same confluent theme, which I can only presume will eventually resonate throughout all the new versions of the Windows Live products which come out. They all have new installers which simply install and give no more than 2 shortcuts on your desktop, but they’re all new and exciting and I recommend anyone with some spare time to check them out.

Windows Live Folders is the front end view for what is to become Live Drive (note, there’s no Windows to prefix this, such as Live Search and Live Maps), which is a central storage system for your files and important documents. Using Windows Live ID, you can sign in and upload/download and modify your files, whilst allowing only yourself to view certain files and letting others including the world view others.

Personal folders include files and folders which is only for you and your eyes only. You can access this by signing in and accessing your personal documents, backups and contacts.

Shared folders is there to enable you to share documents with other users, friends and family. You’ll need to sign in to access these if you’re a third-party person and if you’re on the access list then you’ll be able to get access to this folder.

Public folders are for everyone, so you can look in anyones public folders.

It’s far from ready yet - I can’t access my files and folders due to a .NET Framework error message (standard problem) so there are a few things to iron out, but in due time the storage will expand to an expected 5/10GB and rumour of a desktop application and a mobile site coming soon.

Note: US users only - however you can work around this - go to Windows Live Account and change your region to “United States”. Wait around 4 hours for this to take affect and you should be well on your way.

Go to Windows Live Folders
More information

Update: Thanks Chris, you’re a good man, you uncovered the story nicely. Big thanks to Chris at LiveSide for making this known to the world. But I’m not linking back to you

While news on the “Live Drive” front has been rather non-existant of late, there are some signs that may be about to change. A new service, Windows Live Folders beta, was recently listed on the Windows Live Feedback site, though it was only a matter of days before it was removed. While it doesn’t take a genius to work out this is likely to be a storage service, the question is what will it be? A revamped FolderShare, the “Live Drive” cloud storage service everybody has been waiting for, or a combination of both?

The initial details being discussed at TechEd last year were for a cloud storage service offering 2GB of space for free. Looking at services that have been operating in this market for a while, this figure seems to be lower than what will eventually be offered. Xdrive currently offers 5GB for free and 50GB for $9.95 a month but without the economies of scale that Microsoft can draw upon. (The newest Microsoft datacenter opened in Quincy at the end of last month and more are on the way.) Interestingly enough, the online Apple service .mac is still offering a basic service of just 1GB for $100 a year and a total of 4GB for another $100 a year. With Windows Live Hotmail offering a 2GB inbox (Hotmail Plus 4GB), it definitely makes sense for a Windows Live cloud storage service to offer significantly more than this.

The other key feature that was talked about last year is being able to map your online storage to your PC so you can access it as you would any other drive. The existing Windows Live Messenger feature, Shared Folders, does this already for peer-to-peer sharing, so perhaps this is where the name Windows Live Folders comes in.

To save our intrepid readers from doing this themselves, folders.live.com currently points to the new Windows Live beta site. One question I do have is how would people use a cloud storage service and therefore how much storage space would they need - would you pay for more if the price was right?

Source: LiveSide

At the moment, Windows Selfhost is an internal product being tested by a number of Microsoft employees, at the “dogfood” stage (where internal developers and staff trial the products themselves as a method of quality control).

We’re honestly not quite sure what this is yet - a self storage solution, part of Windows Server System, possibly a Windows Live service (could well be from the FolderShare program which was acquired last year), or could be part of Windows Home Server, as guessed as the logos are the same. Whatever it is, it’ll have something to do with Vista no doubt.

Anyone have any more information, ping us at admin@liveandbeyond.com.

Over the last few days, the good guys at LiveSide briefly and quietly broke the news about the upcoming Windows Live Core OS (operating system). I wanted answers, so after a bit of research and digging around, I’ve got something.

Microsoft Research has a lot to play in Live OS and the people involved have extensive backgrounds in online web services, networking and server storage. I propose that Live OS will be the front-end management system for Windows Live Drive, the online  storage service being introduced later this year by Microsoft. 

Many questions arise from Live OS and not rather my fantastic idea, such as how, why, when and where. Using our knowledge from people we know and from our sources, as well as from Live Search, we have come up with what we believe to be the answers. Please note: this is not necessarily factual nor does represent the ideas from Microsoft and these answers are from our own research which we believe is honest, fair and as accurate as possible.

When will Live Drive appear?
Windows Live Drive should be rolling out between Q2 and Q3 we estimate.

When will Live OS appear?
We estimate this year, perhaps with the release of Live Drive but we cant confirm.

What will Live OS look like?
It can either be in a web AJAX interface where it is coded in HTML and other server side scripting. It could be in form of a Flash application which runs in most web browsers and is simpler to use and more compatible; or could be an actual operating system in form of a virtual machine. If it is a virtual machine, it would be in form of Windows Server 2003 which can have many users logon simultaneously and can have cast storage solutions whilst saving licenses. Any server/networking techy will most likely understand the reasoning behind this

Will Live Drive/Live OS be free?
Both of us here were at a Windows Live conference last year which stated that all the Live services would be free, but proved themselves wrong with the release of OneCare. We believe that both products will be free but Live Premium accounts (previously MSN Premium) will have extra features and will have extra storage - but this is not confirmed by a long shot.

How much space will be offered?
From internal sources, beta testers of Live Drive get between 5GB and 20GB of storage but this will most likely change in the course of the program.

Will there be a beta testing process for the public?
We expect so - the beta program is midway between Beta 1 and Beta 2 with an expected technical refresh within the month. Live OS is probably behind in the development stages of the entire service.

Will there be advertisements?
If it is a free service, expect advertisements as these are what keeps most of the Live services running.

How long has Live Drive been in development?
Windows Live Drive is essentially the first Windows Live service. It has been in planning and development stages since late 2004 before even MSN Messenger was switched over to Live. It has taken this long to build huge datacenters packed with servers, and they have only recently been developing the software solution - it’s taken that long.

Where is this datacenter, and where will my files and folders be?
Somewhere north-east of Redmond near Seattle in the United States.

How will I access my files?
Using your Windows Live ID of course