Microsoft today released an update to Skype for Windows 8. In the 1.6 release, the company has added users' most requested features. The latest Skype offers users higher control over who can contact them by adding the ability to block contacts. Users may also choose whether they want to remove or report the contact request as spam.

Performance improvements inlcude the faster loading speed and reliability across the application.

Additionally in this release, Microsoft have fixed a number of issues from the previous release, most notable of them are:

- Video: In some cases, outgoing video was not displayed after switching camera in the Options menu
- Calling: In some cases, Skype displayed the wrong call error message when a call failed
- Generic: Skype occasionally crashed when clicking on the "info" menu option
- Generic: Skype crashed after typing "batch" into the IM input field Calling: It was not possible to switch between calls on hold

The upgrade is now via the Windows Store.