Arthur de Haan, Windows Live Test and Service Engineering, summarizes the changes:

• Mail: We fixed a sorting issue in the Sent items folder and improved the upload reliability and instrumentation in Photo mail.
• Messenger: We fixed a couple of stability issues and made various changes for improved voice and video quality. We fixed an issue that was causing sound to be lost after upgrading, and we improved performance when displaying the MSN Today page in the main window.
• Photo Gallery: We implemented various bug fixes for crashes related to launching Photo Gallery through Autoplay and facial recognition.
• And more: We made many other usability, performance, and stability improvements across the suite of Windows Live Essentials apps.

Download Windows Live Essentials 2011 15.4.3538.0513.

Context menu (right mouse button) and keyboard shortcuts

In the recent update, the context menu has been extended with more features. You may show the menu by right-clicking on a message in your e-mail inbox. Now you can also reply, reply to all and forward messages directly using the context menu. The new context menu tasks get added to the existing actions Mark as unread, Delete, Junk e-mail, Move and Show source.

Another possibility for working with Hotmail efficiently are the keyboard shortcuts. From Outlook, you may know the Ctrl+N shortcut to compose a new message, and Ctrl+Enter to send it—they work in Hotmail as well! Furthermore, many shortcuts from other providers with as well, to help you if you’re familiar with Yahoo!, for example. Soon, I’ll publish a complete list of Hotmail keyboard shortcuts.

Individual e-mails

I’m sure you know how to design your e-mails with Hotmail. For example, you can pick your favorite font, or sign your messages with your personal signature.

Now, you can also define a default font for your e-mail messages. This way, you don’t have to set your favorite font over and over again for each new message you compose. Instead, you define a preference for any future e-mails that you send with Hotmail. Just like you’d do it in Outlook.

More new features

The Windows Live team has also enhanced how the Back button in your browser works. Also, e-mail drafts now store their attachments too.

If you have deleted a message in error and can’t find it in your Deleted items folder anymore, there is now a link to restore some of your older e-mail, at the bottom of your Deleted items folder.

Finally, you may have noticed Hotmail’s increased speed? The Windows Live team has added features based on HTML5. More details about this speed boost soon.

The Windows Live team has published an instant update for the web file storage Windows Live SkyDrive.

Omar Shanine, Group Program Manager, SkyDrive.com, announced:

Starting today, we are launching a new version of the SkyDrive website. We took advantage of modern browsers and HTML5 to make SkyDrive faster, easier to navigate, and more beautiful for viewing photos.

Some of the new features include:

Site

• New layout, look and feel, and site architecture
• SSL enabled on all authenticated pages
• Clean urls (removed most of the junk from the URLs)
• SkyDrive can now be pinned to your Windows 7 taskbar with jump lists (IE9)
• Header now says SkyDrive
• What’s new feed for docs and photos removed
• Upload file size limit now 100MB
• Moved to edge-to-edge layout to take advantage of larger screens
• Reduced size of header to give more room to your content

Photos

• Brand new photos experience
• HTML5 video playback
• Thumbnails generated for H.264 Video
• CSS3 Transitions for albums and 1-up view
• Photo album thumbnails now “pulse”
• Thumbnails generated for all photo sizes (previously limited to 5000px)
• Support for aspect ratio thumbnails (including panorama)

Docs

• Icons for PDF filetypes
• Recent documents includes more items
• Open in Office Client from SkyDrive now gives you the option to install Office 2010 trial using Click-to-Run technology
• Performance improvements to the Office Web Apps in IE9
• Details view now supports touch

Groups

SkyDrive groups now appear in the left nav giving you one click access to Group content.

In a future post, I will highlight some of the new features in the all-new Windows Live Skydrive, Wave 5 (16.0).

A new Skype client for Windows users helps with login problems. A Mac OS X version is coming soon, too. With the new hotfix versions, users can spare the manual solution of the login problem that started on May 26, 2011. According to Skype, some users had problems with their data being corrupted so the client could no longer sign into the Skype servers. Users also reported software crashes.

The new Skype for Windows is available for free download, a corrected Mac client will follow. Linux users have to use the manual steps at the moment, to fix the problem.

The update fixes a problem that causes Messenger to crash on exit. Furthermore, the compatibility with Apple’s next operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion has been enhanced.

The update is available for free download at Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads?pid=Mactopia_Messenger&fid=B1C84F39-517C-4E9B-AF81-9318992710B7#viewer .

Windows 7 Service Pack 1, image by intowindows.com

The first major update for Microsoft’s successful Windows 7 has been released. Besides new features, it contains all previous updates and hotfixes published for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Free download: Windows 7 Service Pack 1

MSDN and TechNet subscribers could download the update since 16 February 2011. Windows 7 SP1 is now available via the Windows Update feature and can be downloaded for free. Some of the new features include these:

• The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack contains an enhanced security management for the Bitlocker and Bitlocker To Go features.
• Service Pack 1 adds support for the upcoming Windows Thin PC platform. Business customers can run older computers with limited resources as thin clients with Windows 7 using Software Assurance.
• More enhancements apply to Windows Server 2008 R2. RemoteFX extends the remote services with hardware acceleration features. This lets you play videos, music and animations from remote like you would sit right in front of the computer.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 now supports Dynamic Memory for Hyper-V. This lets you change how much memory is allocated to virtual machines while they are running.

Free download: Windows 7 Service Pack 1

The newest update for the most prominent Windows Live Messenger extension, Messenger Plus! 5, has been released. It adds support for Messenger 2011 as well as minor enhancements and one major new feature: online chat logging. The update is the first major update since Messenger Plus! had transitioned from being developed by a single developer, to an application being worked on by multiple developers.

Nathalie, Community Liaison at Yuna Software, announced:

Messenger Plus! welcomes Windows Live Messenger 2011 users to its community of more than 62 million members. Messenger Plus! users benefit from skins, scripts, plugins and all the exciting features of this freeware that has been enhancing Windows Live Messenger since 2001.

Along with the software’s version 5, the Messenger Plus! website has been recreated from scratch. Now it features a new “MyPlus!” section, soon you will be able to upload your contributions directly, such as skins, scripts or display pictures. With the new online chat logging feature, you can read your log files from wherever you are — after logging in at the Plus! website using your MyPlus! login.

Free download: Messenger Plus! 5.0.1.706

Until now, this Wave 3 update (build number 14.0.8117) was optional. This is going to change soon: The update will be forced on all users of Windows Live Essentials 2009. Piero Sierra, the Group Program Manager for Windows Live, announced:

This Messenger update simplifies how you start a video call from within Messenger pre-2011. Rather than individually managing your and your friend’s webcam feeds and audio, you can now start a video call just by clicking the “Video” button in the conversation window or by clicking the webcam icon. Also, you can more easily make video calls to your friends who do not have webcams, controlling the audio for both you and your friend by clicking the speaker and microphone icons.

This minor update is going live within the next week and rolls out in 48 languages. It does not force you to install Windows Live Essentials 2011 however.

The Service Pack 1 update, which will be available in 37 languages, has the build number 7601.17514.101119-1850. For installing SP1, you have to install the preparation update KB976902 first. Although Windows 7 SP1 is not yet available for download from Microsoft servers, you can find the setup files on various websites already.

To install the update, just run the installer from Windows Live Essentials 2011 15.4.3538.0513 again. Afterwards, reboot your computer. Here is a list of included bug fixes (incomplete, perhaps):

• Windows Live Writer 2011: The Alt Gr could not be used for typing special characters (like needed in French and German keyboard layout).
• Windows Live Mail 2011: a hash “#” was added to any sent e-mail if Internet Explorer 9 beta is installed
• More fixes due to the Internet Explorer 9 beta

While I am just getting round to installing the update, please let me know if you become aware of more bug fixes included in this Essentials 2011 update.

In the corresponding spam mail, you might read that there is an update patch available regarding the security problems in Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 3.x. This patch is said to be compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and would be offered for download via the website microsoft-security.de (closed down in the meantime).

The electronic spam mail also contains a short installation manual. In the first step, recipients should download the mentioned fake “patch”, labeled “patch-web.exe” and launch it by double clicking.

After installing, a system restart is necessary. With friendly regards, the so-called Microsoft Director of Security Assurance, Steve Lipner ends the mail, according to information by the German news portal ‘T-Online’.

Commonly, you should always be alert with such e-mails announcing supposed security updates. You should only download updates from official and serious sources, as security experts recommend.

As the executable is said to be a new trojan, there is currently only rare information about this malicious software available. Experts still need to analyze the malware’s features.

Since Windows Live Messenger 2011 (code name “Wave 4”) was released last Thursday, I received some questions as to when Messenger Plus! will be updated to work with the new Messenger version. Here are some details.

Messenger Plus! 4.9 will be released around the next week-end (Sunday 10 October 2010, plus-minus two days). Note that this minor update will provide only basic support, similar to the support with Plus! 4.85 for the last Messenger Wave 4 beta. It is still the next major version, Messenger Plus! 5, that is targeted at full support for Messenger 2011.

By the way, removing advertisements in Messenger 2011 is also possible:
Ahmed has updated his patching software A-Patch for Messenger 2011 1.43.10.

Ye Gu, Group Program Manager, Windows Live mobile services, explains:

On June 21st, we released the Windows Live Messenger app for iPhone. Since then, the Messenger app has reached #1 in the iTunes app marketplace at some point in time in over 50 countries, and we’ve had nearly 7 million downloads worldwide. Thank you for the great support you’ve given us!

For example, you can now resort your contact list, like sorting it by online/offline contacts, by Favorites or by status. More new features include:

• Support for iOS 4
• Facebook Chat integration
• Friends List Filters
• Blocking/unblocking contacts
• Faster sign-in
• 31 languages supported

Still missing: feature-complete iPad support. It is unknown when this will get added.

This revamped Facebook Chat system will run more stable, compared to the current system used since Facebook Chat was launched some two years ago. Rodrigo Schmidt, Software Engineer at Facebook, states:

Many of you have told us that sometimes your Chat session comes and goes or even stops completely. [...] We know you want Chat to be hassle-free and uninterrupted. In the coming weeks, we will be making important improvements in the way connections are established and messages are sent, so that Chat will be much more stable for you and your friends. The biggest improvements come from changes that aren’t supported on older web browsers.

So, if you are still surfing the web with IE6, you have now one more reason to upgrade. By the way – just on September 15, the Internet Explorer 9 Public Beta is launching… why not give it a try?

In this webmail update by Microsoft, new features like filters, inbox sweep, quick views and more were introduced. Furthermore, some changes have been integrated into this version, like you will not be signed in to Messenger automatically anymore when you open Hotmail.

The update began more than a week ago, and the team saw the need to delay the rollout to all datacenters in order to fix some issues before the new Hotmail would finally be launched worldwide. If you notice any problems with this update, please report it to the Hotmail team, either in their blog or in the Windows Live Solution Center.