If you’ve been away for a few days you may have not noticed the new Windows Live Messenger 9 beta has been publicly released. Sporting some new features, old features reworked and a new Vista-like interface. To get it all you need to do is head over to http://download.live.com/ and follow the directions. For an overview head to Liveside for an comparative look and for all the features, information from the team itself head over to Windows Live Messenger team’s blog.
It’s certainly a good update in the sense there heading in the right direction. A big selling point is creating your own custom Dynamic Display Pictures which you can use pictures or even webcam video to create them and best of all its free! A few little glitches and bugs it’s back on the track to take back the Instant Messaging market.
While the buzz around is the Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta, you must remember that if your considering using it your going to have to go without. Going without I mean, not able to use add-ons such as Stuffplug and Messenger Plus! as neither software are compatible as yet(leaked beta after all!)
Atleast for now Patchou has said compatibility will be expected on the release of Messenger Plus! 4.50, theres no word on when Stuffplug will be. We’ll keep you posted but for now if you love your add-ons, still use Windows Live Messenger 8.5.
Windows Live Messenger 9 has been leaked to net to numerous websites around the globe, sporting new features;
- Messenger Sounds – Configure a signature sound when you come online to your buddies.
- Multiple Sign Ins – For example; Allows you to sign into messenger on the pc as well as your Xbox Live account. Note that it’s only working for registered Beta participants. It should also coincide with the expected Xbox Dashboard Update.
- Contact Spam – You can now block and report a suspected spammer(relating to advertising etc.)
- Animated Display Pictures – Such as an animated gif, Dynamic Display Pictures(DDP’s) which currently can only be made by companies with a Digital License are still around.
Links can be found all over the place and we won’t be linking it to front page. Try Google perhaps ? We suggest you keep using the current version 8.5 till this is publicly released by the Messenger Team. You can also head to mess.be for screenshots.
It seems Microsoft has caved in and quickly made the latest beta available to the public. According to the Windows Live Messenger blog, you can now download Windows Live Messenger 8.5 beta from the Windows Live Messenger beta page.
The emoticon bug posted about by David has seemingly been resolved in this latest build.
Today an internal build of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 was leaked by Messenger Addictos, a Spanish site about Windows Live Messenger and related products.
The new build includes a completely new installer system (though it appears it might need some more work). Messenger itself also got a complete visual overhaul, featuring a new UI that combines the best of Windows Live and Vista. It also includes several minor new features, some of which are still undisclosed. Unfortunately support for Plug-Ins (or “Add-Ins”) has been dropped (the plugins feature never seemed to make progress in any releases).
Click on the links below to view some screenshots of the new Messenger (thanks to mess.be):
- Sign in window
- Windows Live Messenger 8.5
- Sign-in Toast
- Conversation Window
- New typing indicator (above text input)
- About window
The leaked build is only available in Spanish at the moment, but if you managed to download it somewhere, you can copy the old language file (”msglang.dll”) of Windows Live Messenger 8.1.0178 over the new one (”msglang.8.5.1235.0517.dll”). Note that the installation directory has also been changed to “C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger\” making the transition from MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger more complete.
via mess.be
