Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials is a collection of tools which have been designed to enhance not only Windows itself but also your general online experience. The second beta version of the 2011 suite has just been released and include a number of enhancements and additions that make it well worth taking a look at.

Comprising Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, Messenger, Writer, Family Safety, Messenger Companion, Bing Bar, and Sync, Windows Live Essentials really does have something for everyone. The focus on enhancing your life online continues and there have been a number of refinements in this area.

Windows Live Messenger can now be used to not only chat to your Windows Live contacts, but also to conduct Facebook chats. Photo Gallery sees the addition of Bing Maps geotagging and projects created in Movie Maker can now be exported to Flickr.

There have also been a large number of general improvements to the suite, with many of its components benefiting from performance and stability tweaks.

As Windows Live Essentials is still beta software, there is no automatic update option built in. As such you will have to download the new software and install it manually to benefit from the new features.