Windows Live team blog

Over the past several months, Windows Live Calendar has been in beta. We’ve been experimenting with features, listening to your feedback, and polishing up the service. Now the calendar is finally ready for prime time, and is being rolled out in more than 45 languages.

There’s tons of new and improved stuff to play with, like the to-do list, charms, support for multiple calendars and shared calendars, a birthday calendar for all the people in your contact list, and better integration with Windows Live Events, Groups, and Hotmail on the web, and Windows Live Mail on your PC. You can read all about the new and updated features on the Hotmail team blog.

Coming out of beta also means that within the next few months, people still using the original (MSN) Calendar service will gradually begin to be moved over to the new Windows Live Calendar service. Don't worry, all your current calendar appointments, meeting requests, tasks, and notes will automatically come with you to the new Windows Live Calendar. Your tasks and notes will be transferred to the new to-do list. This Window Live Calendar FAQ has more information about the upcoming move, and some actions that you may need to take to prepare.

If you haven’t tried the new Calendar yet, check it out at http://calendar.live.com/ and let us know what you think! Please send us feedback here, or leave us a comment about what you do or don’t like about the new Calendar. 

- The Windows Live team

PS. If you need help with Hotmail, you’ll find it in the Windows Live Solution Center.

We are happy to announce that POP3 technology is now available to Hotmail users in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. If you don’t see your country or region in this list, never fear, we’ll be rolling POP3 out to more parts of the world later this year.

What is POP3? It is a protocol that allows almost any e-mail software program that you’ve installed on your mobile phone or PC* to get messages from your e-mail inbox on the web and deliver them in the designated program.

Although you always could access Hotmail on your web-enabled mobile phone by going to mobile.live.com, now that Hotmail has POP3, you can get to it more conveniently using the e-mail software on your PC or mobile device* such as a Windows Mobile phone, iPhone, or BlackBerry.

When you set up Hotmail in the e-mail program on your PC or mobile device, you may be asked for the following information:

POP server: pop3.live.com
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

In addition to POP3, Microsoft offers additional technologies that can provide you with an even richer experience of your e-mail. Try viewing your Hotmail using Windows Live Mail, Microsoft Office Outlook via the Outlook Connector, or Windows Live for Windows Mobile phone.

Looking for help with Hotmail? Visit the Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center! The Solution Center has instructions on how to set up your e-mail software to send and receive Windows Live Hotmail messages using POP3. You’ll also find instructions on how to set up Hotmail on the web to give you POP3 access to a non-Windows Live e-mail account. If you have problems using POP3 access, Windows Live Hotmail Solution Center also has links to report a problem with Hotmail.

We hope you enjoy the many ways in which you can access your Windows Live Hotmail!

- The Windows Live team

* If supported by your device and e-mail program

Last week, we added a new, centralized Permissions page to Windows Live, so you have one place to find the permissions settings for all the things you do on Windows Live. With this, you should find it easier to choose what information you share, and with whom. You can go directly to the page at http://profile.live.com/permissions/ or look for the Permissions link on your profile or on the Windows Live options page.

We heard from many of you here on the blog that you’re concerned about your online privacy, and being able to easily limit what information you share. In December, we posted a detailed list of how to set permissions, to help clarify where to find each setting on Windows Live. After hearing feedback from so many of you about this issue, we’re happy that we could also quickly put together this new permissions page to help make the whole thing even easier, and to make this information available to all Windows Live users in all languages. 

Thanks for all the great feedback so far. Please try out the new page, and let us know what you think!

- The Windows Live team

As Steve Ballmer just announced during his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Windows Live has three big pieces of news to share with you that underscore our continued commitment to simplifying your digital life.

Messenger	Mail	Photo Gallery	Movie Maker (beta)	Writer

First of all, today we’re releasing the final version of Windows Live Essentials, our suite of downloadable programs for your Windows PC. You can get Windows Live Essentials, including Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer, Toolbar, and Family Safety, all for free from http://download.live.com. (Windows Live Movie Maker is also available, but remains in beta.)

Our second big announcement is that Dell will be including Windows Live Essentials pre-installed on most of their consumer and small business PCs worldwide starting in February. Because Windows Live Essentials helps with so many of the things that you do every day on your PC (like e-mail, instant messaging, and photo sharing), now when you get a new Dell PC, you can get started as soon as you take it home.

And finally, we’re excited to announce that you’ll soon be able to add Facebook as one of 50+ web activities on Windows Live. This means that in the coming months, if you’re a Facebook user, you can choose to allow info and photos that you post on Facebook to show up in “What’s new” for anyone in your network on Windows Live. 

So, go download Windows Live Essentials and as always, leave us a comment here on the blog, or send your suggestions to the team via our feedback page.

- Brian Hall