We have one beta invite for the Windows Live Suite beta (Live Messenger, Live Writer and Live Mail). Although the betas are in the public to download, if you want to be a part of the testing experience and guaranteed placing on the Windows Live Messenger 9.0 beta, then leave a comment below with your email address in the correct field and we’ll pick one out.

But to make things interesting - I’d like to know in your comment, reasons “why someone will never look at me the same way again”. These can be hilarious as a result - the best one gets the invite. Go!

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.

With little news coming over the networks and the wires, Windows Live Mail desktop beta has been refreshed and somehow rolled out. Now this is very confusing, as a little time earlier, my application crashed and caused me to restart.

I restarted, and the advertisement pane just vanished. So maybe now the final version won’t have advertisements? Who knows, the adverts are still around on my Windows Live Hotmail and Spaces pages, so who knows.

The new build appears to be 8.0.1226, three builds up from the previous version reported here. No differences are noticed as yet - the beta tags are still in place, and as of 00:43 BST in England, LiveSide hasn’t reported it yet - as it seems, we’re the first people. Check out the screenies below.

Some statistics for the closing beta:

• This beta started on 27th March 2006.
• There were a total of 3080 registered users in the managed beta.
• They received 832 bugs and 358 suggestions over the entire beta
• The newsgroup has had over 3500 posts.

Feedback has closed and no more submissions are being taken on, but it’s important to stress that only the managed beta is closing - the product will still be in beta for some time yet. The newsgroups will remain active for a while, and access to the beta product will still be ongoing. There will be a next release of this product it’s important to say, as development to v2 of the product is going ahead. All current testers will be shifted across to the new beta, just as Windows Live Messenger testers will be onto 9.0.

What next? A new build is just around the corner - shouldn’t be far off at all. Maybe not the final product, but a new build isn’t far off at all.

Update: a message to the testers was the source of this entry.