The final version of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 has been leaked (via mess.be) and is available for download. Microsoft has been cooking Window Live Messenger 8.5 to accompany the second wave of Windows Live releases scheduled for November.
This summer, the Redmond company debuted the second phase in the evolution of its cloud operating system. Consequently, new betas of the products and services reunited under the Windows Live brand umbrella began being available.
In early September, Microsoft unveiled the unified installer for Windows Live, and a plethora of new beta releases including Windows Live Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, OneCare Family Safety and Writer. Windows Live Messenger 8.5 debuted into beta in May this year. In September, Microsoft evolved the instant messaging client from Beta 1 to Beta 2 stage, and by the middle of the month was announcing that the second wave of Windows Live downloads will be made available in early November.
Well, there still is no official word from the Redmond company as to the finalization of Windows Live Messenger 8.5, but the IM client has been leaked and is available for download. At this point, it is clear that the official version from Microsoft will soon follow, but the company failed to provide any details in this respect.
Microsoft has posted download links to Windows Vista SP1 RC Preview on the MSDN homepage for MSDN subcribers.
Get the latest preview of Windows Vista SP1 on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This new release of SP1 addresses reliability and performance issues, and provides support for new hardware and several emerging standards." Windows Vista SP1 is slated for an early 2008 release but beta testers can get their hands on early preview builds. Users have reported that the service pack not only includes many bug fixes but several performance enhancements as well.
As Windows Vista brought to the table the exclusive DirectX 10, the first service pack for the operating system will evolve Microsoft's graphics technology to version 10.1.
DirectX 10.1 is already available to over 12,000 testers via the first beta of Vista Service Pack 1, concomitantly with the official release of Build 6001.16659. Although the testing milestones of Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows XP SP3 Beta, are officially limited in terms of access, a hack is available designed to permit the download of Windows Vista SP1 Beta Build 6001.16659 straight from Microsoft, and simultaneously test drive DirectX 10.1.
However, Vista users have to understand that DirectX 10.1, as well as DirectX 10 is a technology intimately connected with the underlying graphics card, such as the upcoming ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series. According to an AMD whitepaper focused on the implementation of DirectX 10.1 in the ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series, the latest application programming interface from Microsoft, manages to "unlock the state of the art in GPU technology."
"DirectX 10.1 maintains the overall structure and programming model of DirectX 10, while providing numerous enhancements. The vertex, geometry, and pixel shader instruction sets have been updated to Shader Model 4.1. The new features of DirectX 10.1 can be divided into three general categories: new shading and texturing capabilities, anti-aliasing improvements, and tighter specifications. The following table highlights some of the key features in each of these categories, as well as some of the benefits they provide," states an excerpt of the ATI whitepaper on DirectX 10.1, via TeamATI.
ndows Live Messenger 8.5 released 
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