As we have continued to release the latest updates to Windows Live, we’ve been getting a ton of great feedback from all of you. Most of you have said that you’re really enjoying the new updates and features. But we’ve also heard about some problems and received some questions, so we want to tell you about what we’re doing to fix the problems and give you some answers to your questions.

First of all, as we’ve been rolling out these updates, some of you have noticed issues with accessing the new services. Specifically for Profile, Photos, SkyDrive, Events, Spaces and Groups, some people have had to try multiple times to get to their services. We have identified this as a problem related to networking, and we are working hard to resolve it and make sure that all of you, around the world, have consistent access and can get in and enjoy the new services.

We have also heard about issues as you try to send network invitations to other users. There is an error that is currently affecting some users. We’re aware of the problem and are working on having it fixed soon.

As with any new service, there are bound to be some growing pains, but we sincerely apologize to anyone who is encountering problems, and we hope to have all of them resolved quickly.

A few questions and answers

Some of you have also asked a number of questions about where to find or how to do certain things. Here are some of the most common questions and our answers.

How do I customize who has access to different parts of my personal information?

You have a lot of control here and can be very specific on who gets access to what.

• Determine what information you want to share from the things you are doing on Windows Live by going to your Windows Live Profile, and then, under “What’s new,” click “Options” – or go straight to here: http://profile.live.com/WhatsNewWithYouSettings/
• You can also edit what personal profile information you share with whom on your profile by clicking “Edit profile details” as shown in the picture below. You can choose to share different pieces of information with everybody, nobody, just the people in your network, or specific individuals.

Where is my customized live.com page with all of my feeds?

The new http://home.live.com/ allows for a great deal of customization and you can add some feeds to this page through the “Add headlines” link. You can also rearrange the layout by clicking “Options” near the top-right, and then “Customize this page.” If you are looking for some of Microsoft’s other customized home pages, you can still find them at http://my.live.com/ and http://my.msn.com/

Why can’t I see updates from Twitter and Flixster immediately?

These updates are currently being delayed, but we are working with both companies to address the issue and you should expect to have real-time updates delivered to Windows Live shortly.

Why do I sometimes see “No Name” instead of a real name?

If you’re seeing “No Name”, it means that person hasn’t put a name into Windows Live. So we’d encourage you to get them to do so! It’s really easy and can be done from the same Profile details page mentioned above and located at http://profile.live.com/details/. We also had a temporary problem (now fixed!) during the early hours of this release that made some people appear as “no name” even when they had a name.

With that, I’ll sign off for now. Please keep sending us your feedback on what you’re enjoying, problems that you’re having, and any questions. We’ll keep responding as quickly as we can.

Thanks,

Dharmesh