Official (Connect) beta testers of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 beta have just been informed that the inevitable has happened and it has (finally) been released.

The surprisingly long beta period, which began on the 7th September last year (and opened up to a public beta on the 31st October), has not seen many major changes since the first beta release - apart from some new beta features being removed.

The new features since the last 8.0 release will be posted/updated soon.

It looks like this version has been released just in time to coincide with the release of Windows Vista, especially seeing as it is the first version of Windows Live Messenger to be fully compatible with Vista - and as we reported last year even the betas appeared to run better on Vista than 8.0 versions.

If you like to patch Messenger then you'll be glad to hear that Mess Patch has already been updated for the new version. For more information and to find out when A-Patch gets updated keep an eye on our "Visually Patching Windows Live Messenger" guide on the forums.

The latest versions of Messenger Plus! Live and StuffPlug 3 both appear to be fully compatible with the new release, apart from one small issue in StuffPlug 3 with the talking to blocked contacts feature which is automatically disabled due to incompatibility.

Update: The creators of Messenger Plus! and StuffPlug have both confirmed that their addons are compatible. Patchou has said "As far as I can see, the current release of Plus! works perfectly with it". He also asked for any bugs found to be posted in the Bugs section of the Messenger Plus! Live forums. The Blasphemer said "Just tested my current development version of SP3 with WLM8.1, everything seems to work fine except for two features. So yes, I will probably push out a new version in a few days (possibly weeks)" - and we'll tell you when the new version is out.

>> Download Windows Live Messenger 8.1.0178.0 (choose your language out of the 34 available)