Microsoft begins updating Hotmail

The Windows Live team announced yesterday on its official blog have begun to migrate users to the new version of Windows Live Hotmail. The latter part of the upgrade to the Wave 4 Windows Live products.

In addition to an interface now follows that of Windows Live Mail client, this version loads more news including better tools against spam. In addition to spam filters based on the most powerful SmartScreen used within Outlook and Exchange, Microsoft also makes it easier to unsubscribe to the newsletters subscribed by mistake. Always with a view to easily clean his mailbox, the creation of filters has been simplified with the Sweep function (scanning). With regard to the Microsoft Security will implement an SSL connection for the time of the session. Hotmail now offers links configure shortcuts to certain types of messages, eg those containing pictures or documents.

With this new Hotmail, Microsoft actually addresses to Gmail. For this reason it is not surprising to find a display system by conversations. With a simple right click on the subject of a message it will be possible to activate this mode, but also turn it off. The webmessenger is now placed in the left sidebar. Sending attachments is done via Windows Live Skydrive with still a limit to 50MB per file for a total of 10 GB per message. The mass mailing of photos will automatically generate a gallery and a download link for the recipient. We also note some additional features like preview of some direct media (Flickr, YouTube) directly into the body of messages.

The team said that the update is not instantaneous for everyone. The 400 million users are in fact spread over several server farms. These servers are not tied to a country or the date of account creation. The migration should be finalized in late July. Note however that some features will arrive later. This is particularly true of support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to configure his account on a smartphone, and integration tools Office Web Apps that allow you to view and edit a document received as attachments.