The reviews are coming in and so far the reviews have been positive.  Most of the positive press is around the new user interface.  Nick Bilton of the New York Times has a nice round of of recent reviews on his blog.

Windows Live Essentials is a collection of free programs you can download to enhance your Windows 7 experience.  There are a number of programs available for download including:

·     Mail

·     Messenger

·     Photo Gallery (with facial recognition)

·     Movie Maker

·     Family Safety (Parental Controls)

·     Writer (for blogging)

·     Bing Bar

·     Outlook Connector Pack (check your Hotmail with Outlook)

·     WIndows Live Mesh (keep files in sync across multiple computers)

I use Photo Gallery, Writer, Bing Bar, Outlook Connector Pack and Windows Live Mesh.  Windows Live Mesh is a very useful program that can be used to sync files and folders on several computers as well as sync files and folders to the free 25 Gigs of storage provided with every Hotmail or Live account.

Download Live Essentials here.