The newly renamed Windows Live Messenger has today released a new BETA version of their product, adding new features and bug fixes.

As many will know, upgrading to vista still gives you the old bland layout of WLM (Windows Live Messenger), so the developers have decided to refresh the layout, and in turn make it look absolutely wonderful on Vista (and XP for that matter).

Please remember that by using this edition of WLM, you are using a pre-release copy which may contain bugs and could possibly stuff up your computer (whilst unlikely)

DOWNLOAD LINKS:

• English/US
• English/UK
• English/India
• French/France
• German
• Spanish/US
• Spanish/Spain
• Chinese - Simplified
• Japanese

Post your comments about the new version below and don’t forget to vote on the poll!! (to the right!)

You have an issue with your hotmail account, so who do you contact? Well, obviously Microsoft. But what if they didn’t want to listen?

A few months back my hotmail account was hacked into, using an exploit apparently found in versions of Microsoft Windows Live Messenger (and yes, it was updated). Unfortunately I couldn’t remember the identity question so I was forced to contact Microsoft directly for a resolution.

I emailed Microsoft’s Live ID assistance crew from my wildit email (my personal email), who replied within 48 hours. The major part of the email was this:

Since you are unable to utilize the options to reset your password online, I am pleased to inform you that we can help you by giving you the instructions that you need to reset your password. Please reply to this message using your webmaster@miccas.net account, and include the following sentence in your response: “This is my e-mail address and I would like to reset the password of my Windows Live ID.”

This is the point where I got excited, Microsoft actually did have an answer for me and I would actually get my hotmail back! However, this is where everything started going wrong.

I promptly responded to the email, changing the account from my wildit one to my main webmaster@miccas.net account as requested by Microsoft. Within 10 minutes however, I received this email:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

LV_ID.WNLV.NA.US.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com

The email also included 2 attachments. One being the message I had sent, and the other was a file called details.txt which contained this:

Reporting-MTA: dns;ext-imc-02.partners.extranet.microsoft.com
Received-From-MTA: dns;TK5-EXHUB-C101.redmond.corp.microsoft.com
Arrival-Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:19:29 -0700

Final-Recipient: rfc822;LV_ID.WNLV.NA.US.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;554 5.1.0 Sender Denied

My first thoughts were that they have blocked my email, so I decided to email them once again, however from the wildit account which had been working.

Their next response couldn’t have been any worse.

I understand that you are unable to reply using your other account due to a Delivery Status Notification error message you encountered. I can imagine how inconvenient this must have been for you and I look forward to providing you with the necessary assistance.

Michael, when you reply, please make sure to use the same subject on this e-mail, as it is being used as a filter in our system. We will not receive your e-mail if the subject has been changed or omitted.

Furthermore, I am requesting you once again to reply to this message using your webmaster@miccas.net account, and include the following sentence in your response:

“This is my e-mail address and I would like to reset the password of my Windows Live ID.” 

Now I can assure you that the subject line was kept intact, and with further emails just like this with Microsoft blatantly blaming the issue on me, I decided to open a new ticket straight from my webmaster@miccas.net acccount.

BUT, guess what? I lodged the ticket and what do I get in the mail?

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

LV_ID.WNLV.NA.US.EN.MSF.SEA.TS.T01.RTG.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com

After about another 5 email back and forth, I finally asked that the issue be raised further and that the supervisors are alerted of my ticket. Within 5 days, I received an email entitled “Reset You Windows Live ID Password”. Well, the joy that had overcome me was just amazing. Nearly 2 weeks had passed and I had finally unlocked my account.

So, you’re wondering why I’m still complaining? It’s because the email that I had received was actually for a different account, not my hotmail account which was blocked.

Now further emails to Microsoft are just being ignored. Emails from my wildit account aren’t being responded to, and my webmaster@miccas.net account is still bouncing back.

To this day, nearly 2 months past and my hotmail account is still under the control of somebody else and Microsoft aren’t lifting a finger to help.

Had an issue like this one? Comment below, I’d love to hear your comments.

A while back it was brought to my attention that Sun Microsoftsystems were giving away free copies of their Solaris 10 Operating system to anyone who filled out the online form.

Well, today I received the discs, as shown in the photo on the right (click to expand). There were 3 discs enclosed. “Solaris 10 Operating System X64/X86 DVD”, “Developer Tools DVD” and “Solaris 10 Operating System SPARC DVD”.

To request your copy, head over to the promo page and fill out the form. It should come to your delivery address within 10 days.

Request A Copy |

Joost has just gone unlimited, and do to help out those looking for Joost Invites we’re giving them away here!

To get your Joost invite just reply here with your first and last name in the comments box, and your email address in the appropriate field. They will be emailed to you asap!

Absolutely free of charge!

Please make sure you digg this post as well, so that everyone can have a chance of getting an invite.

Update: Please make sure you accept the Privacy Policy before requesting an invite! - http://www.joost.com/privacy.html

According to a post made on the MyPCProsLLC website, Microsoft will soon begin to check the validity of your copy of Windows every month.

Starting now, they will be checking your operating system every month.; ‘Microsoft’s New Validation Policy’

Mr. Hall, the posts author, raised some fair statements in regards to the genuine users of Microsoft’s products. One such statement included the fact that the ever increasing amount of validations will in fact use more bandwidth on Microsoft’s server, and one result may be that the end user will be required to pay more for the products.

Doing it once per install is one thing but now this number of checks gets multiplied by 12. Could have an impact on their bottom line at the very least, and they’ll of course pass this cost on to it’s customers

However, with the increasing popularity of cracks and leaked keys for the Windows operating system, having a check every month will rule out all the illegal copies, leaving the genuine users to have a better experience… hopefully!

Source | Microsoft Genuine Advantage FAQ