Windows Live Wave 3 beta goes public

[Kudo]

Have you been drooling over the latest screenshots of Windows Live wave 3? Now get yourself in on the action. Microsoft is launching the official Windows Live Wave 3 beta today.

Watcher of all things Microsoft Live, LiveSide.net has the links to the official downloads from Microsoft, that include the latest versions of Live Messenger, Movie Maker, Mail with Calendar synchronization, Writer, Photo Gallery, Family Safety and the Outlook Connector. These downloads have been confirmed as functional, and in the case of Windows Live Messenger will install "Version 2009, build 14.0.5027.908"


Download: http://g.live.com/1rebeta3/en/wlsetup-all.exe

Here's a list of changes and new bits in the new Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta (14.0.5027.908) that went live today

• Change your dashboard background ("scenes"), big inbox icon to the right, Personal Status Message separated from "music you're currently listening to", colored display picture frames to show current status, new buddy list icons, What's new feed and relocated promotional tabs.
• Favorites and Groups features, left-aligned display pictures in the convo window, added Segoe UI font

New discoveries:

• Hover-over contact options menu (Send an IM, send an e-mail, etc.)
• New Layout tab in Tools > Options allows you to customize the appearance of your contact list window (screenshot).
• New (softer) sounds for contact signing in, new e-mail, incoming/outgoing voice or video call, new Windows Live Alert and nudge.
• System sounds now have the same editor as signature sounds.
• Links in display names are not clickable. Those in PSMs are.
• Say goodbye to "Out to lunch", "In a call" and "Be right back". The Messenger statuses are now limited to "Available", "Away", "Busy" or "Appear offline".
• New "What I'm listening to" icon.
• Chat history button added to conversation window.
• Sharing folders feature makes room for Windows Live Skydrive: Click Files > Publish files online in the conversation windows. NOTE: Clicking "View your online files" in the hover menu on your own Display Picture opens a faulty link (skydrive.live-int.com instead of skydrive.live.com)
• New Display Picture options for webcam owners: Webcam snapshots and Tile with moods.
• Clicking your Display Picture in the main window allows you to change your Display Picture again (in 8.5 this just showed your contact card).
• Word wheel now offers Search for profiles and Live Search options.
• Invites you to add MessengerTV@live.com, the Messenger TV bot, to your contact list

[Philip]

Things are getting pretty exciting at the Microsoft end with the launching of Windows Live Wave 3 Beta. LiveSide.net has all the details plus the URL links where you can download the applications mentioned in Kudo's post.

Most interesting is WLM9, which I've just downloaded and trying out. So far, I'm impressed. A long list of cool features, including redesigned interface, nice sounds and alerts, Online Folders (Shared Folders in WLM8.5), changing colors in your display pic rims to indicate your status, and lots more. Check this link.

One caveat: Messenger Plus! won't work on this latest beta of WLM9, but I presume Patchou will have a new build up in the near future. I suspect that other third-party add-ons will not work with this beta. Also, custom emotes don't seem to display all the time in conversation windows, but this is a minor niggle (all the standard Messenger emotes are good).

I've got a feeling that we won't have to wait too long to see the final build of WLM9.

[Stigmata]

If you only want Windows Live Messenger or want a smaller download size, use this link and select which items you want:

http://g.live.com/1rebeta3/en/wlsetup-web.exe

[patndoris]

Interoperability with YH is buggy. Start a conversation with a YH contact and the reply will be as if you were offline. A new window pops up with the reply from the YH contact. It steals the focus as well, so be careful if you're holding multiple conversations.

As Philip mentioned, custom emoticons don't show in sent messages, but they do show when you receive them.

Also, if you try to drag and drop a photo into the IM window, and your contact is not on beta, while you see they are waiting to respond, they don't apparently see anything at all on their end.

I did find that if you log in mobile, then login to beta you can be logged into both at the same time. However, if you are logged into beta then log in mobile you'll get disconnected since mobile doesn't technically support multiple logins.

No problems in connectivity at this point though which is good.

I'm sure there will be more to come but that's what I've found in an afternoon of playing with it.

[Jeff]

Thanks for posting the news, Kudo! I haven't had a chance to try this beta yet. I'm currently replying from 39,000 feet somewhere over North America, using in-flight WiFi on a sub-notebook running Linux, so it's Gaim for now. I'll definitely check it out when I get back home. Looks interesting.

Bummer to hear about the Yahoo! connectivity problems though. Hopefully they'll squash all those bugs before it goes gold. Doris, did you report the bug?

[detn8r]

I don't know if it was just me, but I had issues with trying to install it. It would freeze often, prompting me to restart the installer.

What's even more bizarre, is that I lost well over 15GB of hard drive space trying to install it. It seemed like, at every attempt, it was being saved in some temporary folder, and as the space grew thin, Messenger didn't have any space left to install on, and wouldn't install period.

I started to delete some programs I don't use often (MAYBE tallying 1.5GB), deleting temp internet files etc and all of a sudden BAM 15 gigs are back. I don't know how much I lost total, but what the hell? It's installed now, thankfully.

So far the things I dislike about it: the favorites and groups categories that I can't seem to get rid of and the green shading around display pictures, even when my colour scheme is a different colour.

I do however think being able to upload a "scene" into the main contact list is kinda neat.

It'll grow on me, how ever Mess patch isn't coming soon enough! :p

[Philip]

OK, just one thing to share with our members. My WLM9 beta's sounds started playing up moments ago. By that I mean I had configured sound alerts when I receive a new chat message, when a contact signs in, that kind of stuff. And I couldn't hear those sounds any more!

I checked WLM9's settings (Tools > Options > Sounds), everything was OK. Then I remembered I still had Messenger Plus! Live in my system. I uninstalled it and the sounds returned.

The moral is that it's better to uninstall all third-party add-ons before downloading and installing WLM9 beta.

[Philip]

For those of you who are still sitting on the fence regarding WLM9 Beta, Liveside.net offers a very comprehensive comparison between WLM8.5 and 9 here.

It's been 5 days or so since I had this latest WLM9 Beta installed, and I'm pleased to report no major bugs so far, barring the custom emotes issue (whereby you can can insert one of your own custom emotes into your window and it doesn't show. But your contact will see it in his or her conversation window).

[brandobean]

tried out the new Windows Live messenger 9.x beta 3 and discovered it doesn't work with SIMPlite so it's a non-starter for me at work. Went to uninstall it and can't seem to uninstall ANY of the programs from the Live Beta suite (starting the uninstaller asks for Admin privledges on Vista, then silently fails - I'm running as admin anyway).

Grrr, can't install version 8.5 over the top. Says "Catastrophic failure" and errors out. Thanks MSFT... now I have a messenger I won't use for security reasons, and can't revert. Any ideas?

[MaddestMax]

brandobean, did you try Windows Install Cleanup?

Google search "Windows Install Cleanup tool" since I can't post a URL yet.

Can't promise anything, but it's helped me out in the past. Careful using it though. You can't reverse the changes it makes. ;)