Microsoft has made Network Monitor 3.1 Beta available for download over at Connect. According to the Network Monitor Team, the beta milestone is full of new features, and the product is only waiting for testers to unveil its full potential. The team gave a few hints on what is new in the release, and focused on the ability to monitor wireless management traffic and to create filters.

Additional Windows Vista support is also a major improvement over previous versions. In order to access the download, users have to sign in at Microsoft Connect, and then make their way to Available Connections on the left hand side menu. Next, navigate to the Network Monitor 3 program and apply for participation. Only then will users be able to access the Network Monitor 3.1 Beta download.

"Wireless (802.11) capturing and monitor mode on Vista - With supported hardware, (Native WIFI), you can now trace wireless management packets. You can scan all channels or a subset of the ones your wireless NIC supports. You can also focus in on one specific channel. We now show the wireless metadata for normal wireless frames. This is really cool for t-shooting wireless problems. See signal strength and transfer speed as you walk around your house! RAS tracing support on Vista - Now you can trace your RAS connections so you can see the traffic inside your VPN tunnel. Previously this was only available with XP," informed the Network Monitor Team.

With Network Monitor 3.1 Beta, Microsoft has streamlined the process of adding a filter, enabling users to simply right click in the frame details data element or a column field in the frame summary and create a filter from the contextual menu. In addition, the Redmond Company has enabled automatic updates, and has revamped the filters graphical user interface.

"It seemed only a few months back we released NM3.0. Oh wait; it was a few months back. One of the fundamental principles on our team is to release frequently. This allows us to provide quick updates for bug fixes as well as adding new features. If a feature doesn't make it in this build, you don't have to wait very long for the next beta. Now the one drawback is that we may not be able to cram in as many features for each release, but in the long run this will help us keep agile and provide the features that are most important today," concluded the Network Monitor Team.