RSSMicrosoft Refreshes Live Mail Beta
By Nate Mook | Published May 16, 2006, 3:06 PM
Windows Live Mail, the successor to Hotmail currently in limited beta testing, was given a facelift Tuesday in what Microsoft calls the "M6" release of the service. Notable additions include support for Firefox, mail signatures and vastly improved performance.
By making use of advanced Web technologies such as AJAX and DHTML, Windows Live Mail does away with the clunky Hotmail interface for a more application-like experience. Users can access right click menus, drag and drop messages between folders, and view messages without refreshing pages.
M6 brings Firefox 1.5 support to the service for the first time. Microsoft previously only supported the alternative browser through the "Hotmail Classic" layout scheme.
"We've been working away and more is finally here, Firefox 1.5 now gets all the same cool features like the reading pane, drag and drop, right click menus, and more, that you’ve seen on Internet Explorer. There are still a few features we’re working on, but we didn’t want to hold back any longer," said WLM Program Manager Steven Kafka.
M6 re-enables signatures, and adds the ability to subscribe to a user's contact information. Much like with third party services such as Plaxo, if a user changes their address, phone or e-mail details, a message will be sent to those friends and colleagues that are subscribed.
Other new features include changing colors on the fly, changing the way contact names are displayed, composing new messages from any page, and the saving of sent mail until it is manually deleted.
Microsoft says 3.5 million people are already using the new beta service, which is expected to launch publicly sometime this year. For the time being, interested Hotmail users can apply to join the beta by visiting ideas.live.com.
since yesterday, my live mail back to classic in firefox 1.5.0.3?????????? I only had enjoy the live mail in firefox for about a week, anyone?
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|dexblair..Yesterday I had an e-mail or something from Windows Live Mail... Beta ... they are working on it and have LOST some items we had ... hopefully in a few days they will have them back up again..Hope this helps you.
ghw
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|Still too God-awful slow for me. I've been on the alpha and beta since initial release. Cute bells and whistles, but slow and clunky. I'll stick with Gmail and the others for now.
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|hope the next release will have support for using it in outlook
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|I do not understand why, they will not allow a person who already subscribes to MSN to be a Beta Tester. They told me that because I am already subscribed to a service provider/partner of theirs that I do not qualify.
Does anyone have an invitation, so that I can see if it will allow through an invite? I tried through straight application and maybe they will allow if invited. I really believe in the Mail system they are developing and would greatly appreciate being able to try it out.
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|Slopok8225... I have an invitation I'll be more than glad to share it with you ..let me find it..then I'll send it.
http://www1.imagine-msn....fault.aspx?locale=en-us
Here is the link to sign up.. hope this will help you.
ghw
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|Why is Opera always the last browser to get support? Well its classic view for me till they support Opera.
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|It worked for me in Firefox 1.5.0.3. Once you get into live mail, right click on adblock, and choose whitelist this page. Worked like a charm.
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|Doesn't work with Firefox on my computer. I mean it "really" doesn't work...just plain locked up. It worked before they "fixed" it, tho.
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|Seems to be working fine sofar.
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|Soren MD is on target...works as advertised in FF. MS has done a good job on this release. I'm looking forward to the final (though GMail will remain my service of choice, unless MS really pulls a rabbit out of a hat).
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|Jeesh, it *still* does not work, at least not with Microsoft's own browser. Within seconds of viewing the first message, "Dead" Mail locked up my computer.
Let me review my experiences. Gmail works. Goowy mail works. Yahoo mail works. 30Gigs mail works. So why can't Microsoft get its to work? Oh well, back to Hotmail Classic--again.
(And if you want to see a real fiasco in action, try the new Microsoft Office Live. I will *gladly* pay for hosting after that god-awful experience.)
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|Agreed! I got stuck in THAT nightmare, too. Even for a beta, OfficeLive is unbelievably broken.
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|So true. If Vista works like Office Live, we're all in trouble.
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|Works with Firefox but not with Adblock!
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|It does this if you block the frame url containing "ADSAdClient31.dll", so whitelisting that will work and the ads themselves will still be blocked because they just reside inside that frame. Unfortunately though the space won't be collapsed because you're not blocking the frame. The only solution is to go back to Adblock Plus 0.5.11.3 and add the site to "Support Websites".
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|This worked for me using
@@http://by101w.bay101.mail.live.com/
in the site blocking/white listing section of Adblock 5.11.3 Options.
and I am still not getting ads.
Thanks for the hint
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|You're better off adding @@mail.live.com to your whitelist, since the rest of the URL could change between logins. Microsoft's ads don't come from the live.com domain, so AdBlock will still block them.
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|It looks GREAT! Good job Microsoft.
It works flawlessly with FireFox
"sophist_dreams" does not know what he is talking about. M6 works with all functionality in FireFox.
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|oh wait, it doesnt work for paradise- either looks like I do know what I am talking about........
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|HAHAHAH you just made my day moron!
SELECT THE LIVE EXPERIENCE OPTION
HAHAHAHAHAH you cant really be that dumb can you?
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|Sigh, obviously YOU cannot read and I am a moron? I believe I said IN MY POST BELOW IT DID NOT work in the Live Mail option, but it did in classic........I can think of a few things to call you but this is public forum, you are probably younger than my youngest son and wouldn't understand anyway.
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|More BS from microspud, says it supports FireFox but it only works if you are in the "classic hotmail view" mode. If you try to go in using "Live Mail" mode you get this message and nothing works "Windows Live Mail was not able to complete this request". Crap, Crap, and More Crap
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|well, looks like their intention is to give "Live Mail" to firefox users. good enough for me for now. hopefully it'll work the next time i check it.
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|Tried it with Firefox 1.5.0.3 and it works fine. And I'm not talking about the Classic version.
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|better than hotmail
and still free :-)
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