It's launch season over at Microsoft's Windows Live group.

Last night, the company rolled out its Windows Live Spaces offering, an update of the MSN Spaces blogging/social networking system. It will go head-to-head with the likes of MySpace.com and Friendster.

It also announced the availability of the Windows Live Toolbar in 38 markets and a beta version of its question-and-answer service. The company said its free PC security tool, Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner will be available in the coming weeks. (It was launched in November as Windows Live Safety Center, for those of you keeping score at home.)

Microsoft said it expects to take the beta tag off of nearly half of the 20 Windows Live products it has been testing by the end of the summer. So far, it has released its free instant messenging, social networking, toolbar, custom domains, favorites, classified marketplace, shopping and product search services.

Here's a story from June with background on Windows Live. And this story from November marks Microsoft's plunge into Internet services.