Fanatic Live

A ranty article at The Inquirer has caused bit of a stir over the past few days, the author writes about his experience with Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger which his kids use. If you have ever been frustrated with Windows Messenger, hopefully you will understand his frustration too.

There are two main problems here: confusion with Windows Messenger vs. MSN Messenger, and Windows Messenger being not so easy to silence. Take a look at my post about the differences between Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger and hopefully see why both exist. For silencing Windows Messenger, I refer back to my article on the Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger API confusion:

Don’t uninstall Windows Messenger

No matter how annoying Windows Messenger may be, do not remove it as it is a Windows component and can cause problems further down the line. Instead, just turn it off. Open it up and go into options, turn off the following two options:

• Run Windows Messenger when Windows Starts
• Allow Windows Messenger to run in the background

For the most part, Windows Messenger won’t annoy you again.

I see bad experiences like this all the time with Windows Messenger, but not so much with MSN Messenger. MSN Messenger is a lot easier to get rid of, users instinctly go to Add or Remove Programs and the deed is quickly done. With Windows Messenger, it is under Add/Remove Windows Components and only removes shortcuts from the start menu. It even states this in the description. If you’re going to do this, also uncheck the two options beforehand as above.

Perhaps this could be easily solved by having that option “Run Windows Messenger when Windows Starts” off by default and let the user decide during install. I hope to soon see some improvements in this area with Windows Live Messenger.