Microsoft has updated its instant messaging client and made the new version available for download. The refresh has been done sotto voce, with Microsoft offering little details about it. The download was published yesterday October 3, 2007, but not much more information was made available. Build 8.1.0178 of Windows Live Messenger weighs in at 17.2 MB - 35.2 MB* and is designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista and Windows XP. This is of course not the latest version of Windows Live messenger that Microsoft is working on. The Redmond company is also cooking Windows Live Messenger 8.5. Build 8.5 is currently in Beta 2 stage, but this is significantly more than what Yahoo is doing with its instant messaging for Windows Vista.

Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista was promised and showcased in early January 2007, and since then, the timeframe for the client always came sooner. Even eight months after the launch of Vista, nine months after the unveiling of Yahoo Messenger for Vista, the Cupertino-based Internet giant is still baking the instant messaging client.

In the meantime, Microsoft delivered version 8.1 of Windows Live Messenger, and advanced to the second Beta of build 8.5, a product designed with Windows Vista in mind. Windows Live Messenger 8.5 moved to beta 2 stage concomitantly with Microsoft taking the whole Windows Live suite of products and services into the next phase. An initiative that produced a variety of additional betas for items under the Windows Live brand umbrella, along with the unified installer for Microsoft's operating system in the cloud.

Back in September, due to a security vulnerability impacting older versions of Microsoft's instant messaging client, the company announced that all its users will be offered forced upgrades to Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from version 8.0 and to MSN Messenger 7.0.0820 from 6.2, 7.0 and 7.5. The alternative to being transitioned to Windows Live Messenger 8.1 was to download and install build 8.5 Beta, of course, with the inherent caveats of running a product still in testing phase.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1.0178 and 8.5.1288.816 Beta 2 can both be downloaded from here.