TrueSwitch is an easy and painless way to copy your e-mail history and contacts from another e-mail account to Hotmail. Read more about it on the Hotmail blog.

Outlook Connector is now ready for prime time. In case you don't know, Outlook Connector is a free, downloadable tool that lets you read and send Windows Live Hotmail (and Office Live) e-mail messages using Microsoft Office Outlook. Since a lot of people (OK, me) use Outlook for work e-mail and Hotmail for personal stuff, Outlook Connector is a pretty handy way to keep track of all your messages in one place. 

To find out more about Outlook Connector, check out this post on the Hotmail team's blog. Or, download Outlook Connector now.  

- Carla

Tired of e-mailing files to yourself or moving them from PC to PC with your thumb drive? Not up for setting up a home network? Good news! The Windows Live SkyDrive beta* gives you 500 MB of free, password-protected online storage. You can choose who has access to the files you upload, or you can keep them to yourself, and access them from anywhere online.

Before yesterday's release, this beta was known as Windows Live Folders. If you already tried out Folders, you'll notice that the newly renamed product also has changes to the look and feel, and some new features like drag-and-drop uploading, and thumbnail images. Read more about it on the SkyDrive team blog. Or go directly to SkyDrive and try it out.

- Carla S.

*What's a beta?

If you use more than one Windows Live service, you know that there hasn't been an easy way to get from one service to another. I, for example, regularly use Hotmail, Messenger, Spaces, and Maps (more on fun with Windows Live Maps in a future post), and I get mighty tired of opening all those different windows and remembering all the URLs.

But help has arrived! The new (beta*) Windows Live home page just launched: home.live.com. Check it out, but make sure you sign in, or you’ll just see a bunch of marketing blurbs. Once you’re signed in, the page provides links to all your Windows Live web services and shows what's happened since you last checked in.

My home page (see picture below) tells me how many new e-mail messages I have (zero!?), who’s recently commented on my space, and which of my friends have updated their spaces. I can also open Messenger or start writing an e-mail message from this page. If I’m feeling adventurous, I can check out a service I haven’t tried yet. (SkyDrive is next for me. No more e-mailing files to myself, or moving them from one PC to another with my USB drive.) Did I mention it has a link to Maps? We likey.

The down side: This page isn’t customizable and doesn’t allow you to get RSS feeds. If you’ve already set up feeds and gadgets on live.com, you can still use that page, but you can't easily get there from this home page. (Click the Windows Live icon on the top left. In the Other Live services menu, choose Live Search. In the top right of that page, you’ll—at long last—find a link to your personalized Live.com page.)

Not bad for a first incarnation. I think this is going to replace MSN.com as my browser home page. Guess I’ll have to IM my friend Monique to find out the latest news about Brangelina.

- Carla S.

*What's a beta?

Welcome to Windows Live Wire, a blog for Windows Live customers by Windows Live customers. OK, so we’re customers who happen to work for Microsoft, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means that we’re pretty familiar with the products and the best ways to use them.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If we want you to read our blog, we should probably start by explaining what in the heck Windows Live is. (Trust us, you’re not the only one who’d like to know.)

The short answer: Windows Live is a growing group of Microsoft online services that work well together and with Windows. Some of the services, like Hotmail® and Messenger, help you communicate more quickly and efficiently. Some, like Spaces, make it easy for you to post pictures and ideas and share them with the people you choose. Others, like OneCare™ and Family Safety, help protect you, your family, and your PC from threats on the Internet. Most Windows Live services are free, but a few have a premium version that you can pay for.

You can use one e-mail address and password, called a Windows Live ID™, to sign in to all Windows Live services, and chances are, you already have one. That is, if you have a Hotmail or MSN® e-mail address, if you use Messenger, or if you ever signed up for a Microsoft Passport account, you have a Windows Live ID. You can also use your Windows Live ID to sign in to a bunch of non-Windows Live services, like Zune™ and Xbox Live™, or anywhere you see this icon: .

That’s enough for now. In the future, we’ll explain more about Windows Live, how our services work together, and how they work with Windows. We’ll also keep you posted about new stuff (assuming we can keep up with it), cool features you may want to try, and our own experiences using Windows Live.

We’d like to hear about your experiences, too. Our feelings won’t be hurt if you tell us you don’t like something. In fact, we hope you do. That way, we can go back to the folks who make the software and let them know how they can make it better.

Of course, we’d also like to hear when you do like something, when you have a question, and what else you’d like to read about here. We'll do our best to respond and keep you coming back.