A new version of FolderShare for Windows (there’s a Mac client available too, but that apparently hasn’t been updated as of yet) is now available.  From the FolderShare team blog:

There’s a new version of FolderShare for Windows available today that includes several updates designed to improve reliability. We encourage all the awesome FolderShare users to install it at their earliest convenience.

These feature improvements work only on the new version, so the old version needs to be removed before the new one is installed. We understand this process may cause some inconvenience, but be assured that your settings and files will remain the same from start to finish.

I’m not a FolderShare user, but I gave the new install a try.  The build number is reported as 14.0.1383.0530.

One note right off the bat, signing in to the FolderShare website isn’t through Windows Live ID, so there’s no correlation between your Windows Live email address and the Live ID password/FolderShare password.  I’ve apparently created a FolderShare account in the past, but have no idea what password it’s under.  Ahh that’s the beauty of multiple email accounts :).

Installation on one machine was quick and painless, taking less than 2 minutes.  One commenter on the FolderShare blog wasn’t too happy about having to uninstall and reinstall on multiple machines, especially without a more detailed changelist than “feature improvements”, but that’s the nature of beta testing (even loooonnng term betas – FolderShare, originally a product from ByteTaxi purchased by Microsoft in late 2005, became “FolderShare Beta, a Windows Live Service” back in March, 2006).

While it is still unclear why Microsoft needs FolderShare, SkyDrive, and Live Mesh all operating as separate services (we thought Wave 3 was supposed to clean this kind of confusion up, not create more), FolderShare seems to be alive and well, and may someday even make it out of beta.  Until then you can give the latest version a try (if you’re running the current bits you need to uninstall them, you will retain all your settings when you reinstall the new version).

Download FolderShare beta version 14.0.1383.0530 for Windows