The new Microsoft Connect site, which we've been working at for months, is now in public beta at http://connectbeta.microsoft.com.

 Head on over and check out some of the new features:

• A Dashboard showing all your activity (across all your connections)!
• Totally revised "My Participation" integrated into the Dashboard. You can now remove old Connections from your list and more.
• Recent bug reports and activity on the homepage, and on your dashboard.
• A totally revamped "Available Connections" page- sorting, categories, and more!
• More tools to manage your Connect experience.
• Improved forum integration!
• Performance improvements across the board.
• And much much more.

We're all very excited about this release of Connect. It's expected to go to the main production site within a few weeks after our shakedown cruise and some opportunity for public feedback.

 Remember, this is a beta site- localization is not yet completed so the site is in English only, users with browsers set to other languages may see missing resources or incorrect text. Also, because this is a beta site, the database it uses is separate and data you enter will not be sent or integrated to the main production site.

 If you find any bugs with the site, please file them at http://connect.microsoft.com/Connect/Feedback - this is the current Connect production site and the place to file bugs about Connect itself. We want to hear your feedback, positive or negative- especially with bugs or unexpected behavior.

On behalf of the Connect team let me say I'm very excited to see this going out and we hope you enjoy it. Now go forth and break it so we can make sure it's working perfectly when we release it! :)

 Known Issues

 Here's a list of known issues with the beta- if you run into these, we're already aware of them and working on them!  

• Dashboard  
  • Some feedback items on your Feedback Watchlist don't show up on See All Your Watchlist page
  • The number of votes, validations, workarounds and comments is not correct in the bug listed under Your Bugs section
  • On Connection Recommendations section the text "No recommendations are suggested" is displayed, even when recommendations are being displayed.
  • A program does not disappear from dashboard UI when remove link is clicked. The page needs to be refreshed. An authorization exception is thrown if you try to access the program after having having removed it.
  • Page not found error displayed when dashboard is accessed by URL directly
  • Header of "Activity in All Connections Since Your Last Visit" section does not change based on the customization options available.
• Newsgroups
  • Page background is shown on middle pane
  • Both "Add to watchlist" button and "Revome from watchlist" button don't toggle until page is refreshed
•  Help
  • The help page still refers to the legacy pages "My Participation" and "Available Connections"
•  Feedback
  • UI overlapping and misalignment  problems when using 120 DPI font size 

More detail about the new features is here.