Finally here it is, Windows Live Messenger build 8.0.0787 released to the public. A full list of changes will be provided soon, but from first looks some icons, the font and text sizes have changed and a lot of bugs seem to have been fixed. The whole program runs much smoother as well. This is the first official Windows Live product to be released now, soon Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Spaces will follow. We can expect users of MSN Messenger quickly being told about the update soon.

Update:
OK then, around 9:00PM GMT time on Monday, Windows Live Messenger became official for all to download and use. One problem from the start was the installer, it was ugly and it not work all to well. Also the program installed into the MSN Messenger directory (wtf) and contains traces of MSN services within the product. This may mean there will never be a Windows Live Messenger directory.

The beta tags are off and that should mean the program is less buggy. However, the program still consumes my process memory really badly and that itself was one of the major issues. I have a low amount of RAM (256 MB) and keeping a lot of high usage programs running affects how I can use my computer, *sigh*. The toasts have also changed, the top bar is much smaller and neater, I personally don't like it but I can see the reasons for changing this.

In conclusion there are no new major things. Bug fixes and slight changes are what is in this version, it is a big step from MSN Messenger so if you have been using the Windows Live Messenger betas, don't expect too much to of changed. Unfortunately there is no Yahoo! Messenger integrating yet, nevertheless Yahoo! is releasing a new version tomorrow, how convenient.

You can download it in different languages:

English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazilian), Italian , German, Chinese (Traditional), Russian, Polish, Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Slovak, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Hebrew, Greek, Korean, Portuguese (European), Arabic.

Other links:

>> View a screenshot of this new build*
>> Official Windows Live Messenger site
>> Microsoft press release
>> Microsoft Q&A with Martin Taylor, corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN

Patches:

Both Mess Patch and A-Patch have been updated for this version (although I recommend not *using the "Translucent Dashboard" option in Mess Patch as it mucks up the UI as it has in the screenshot featured above [and makes me, at least, very confused]):
>> Mess Patch
>> A-Patch