Microsoft has announced the beta availability of their next release of the Windows Live Essentials Suite of products. Windows live essentials has made changes to Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Live Sync (Previously Live Mesh and Folder Share), Live Mail, Messenger and Live Writer.

I have now been using these applications for a few days and I am really impressed, especially with Live Mail. Live mail has had many changes to the UI and a number of new features. I would nearly considering using this rather than Outlook if Outlook 2010 wasn’t so good.

So check out Windows Live essentials beta by downloading from the following site.

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta

The following websites have more details on Windows Live Essentials. I’d rather give you some great existing resources than reinvent the wheel by providing yet another review.

http://www.winsupersite.com/live/wlwave4.asp

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/06/23/announcing-the-new-windows-live-essentials-beta.aspx