Two Forum Moderators have stated in the past week that the known problems with using categories in Windows Live Mail 2012 will be fixed. On 29 August, Glenda_A wrote "this will be fixed in the next release of Windows Essentials."  On 2 September, Vivien_M. wrote "This issue will be fixed on the next release." These categorical statements are good news indeed if they can be taken at face value.

Perhaps the product team could confirm that (a) the bugfix has been written, (b) there will be another release of Windows Essentials and (c) this bugfix will be included in that release. It would be very helpful if they could share with us any other of the many bugs that have been fixed in this upcoming release. I suppose it's too much to ask when the heralded update might be released.