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.