Microsoft has just released a beta of their upcoming 2010 version of Windows Live Messenger. I decided to download it and explore. The first thing I noticed was that much like Internet Explorer 9 and some other Microsoft products, Windows Live Messenger 2010 appears to be exclusive to Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. Whether this is an attempt to encourage users to upgrade from Windows XP or an actual prerequisite for the product to work correctly, I can only speculate. Alas, it appears that Microsoft is starting to completely neglect its XP users when it comes to developing future products.
The primary focus of this particular iteration of Windows Live Messenger appears to be on integrating with social networking sites. Users can now attach their Windows Live accounts to popular sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Last.fm, flickr, etc. I even managed to connect to my WordPress-powered blog (this website).
Full View (bonus points if you can spot the advertisement)
The first thing I noticed when the client window opened was that it’s significantly larger than usual. More than half the client window is dedicated to social networking stuff (your contacts’ updates to Facebook, blogs, etc.). Personally, I don’t really use social networking sites so the change seems like a complete waste of space to me. Thankfully, antisocial users like myself are given the option of switching back to the old “compact” view. If you’re not fond of advertisements, you probably won’t like the full view, which displays a large ad below the contact list.
Your nickname can no longer be changed from the options window and after a bit of investigation, it seems that it can only be changed via your profile on live.com. This is probably to eliminate the hassle of setting up your name across multiple Live services. Other than that, the compact view looks virtually the same as the previous version.
Moving on to the conversation window, another large advertisement presents itself at the bottom of the window, pushing the input textbox up by about 50 pixels, which is pretty damn invasive. Fortunately, this ad can be collapsed and fully disabled within the options window, but in my opinion it has no business being there to begin with.
A typical conversation
One of the major changes to the conversation window is that all of the tools and options have been moved to the bottom of the window and tabs have been added to the top. “What kind of tabs?”, I hear you say. By default, conversations in the 2010 version of Messenger are all amalgamated into a single tabbed window, much like modern web browsers. This seems to be a much neater experience as opposed to having multiple conversation windows spread all over the desktop, but there is a certain level of utility in being able to have conversations in their own windows. You can switch back to the old system in the options window, but what would be really nice is the ability to drag a tabbed conversation out to form its own window, much like you can in Visual Studio.
Photo sharing has been polished, but I still think it should be an optional feature as it makes sending image files a frustrating experience. The character limit on messages appears to be increased which is a good thing.
All of the emoticons have been remade and a bunch of new ones have been added. There seems to be more animated emoticons now as well, so keep that in mind when looking at the screenshot.
For Windows 7 users, they’ve taken the status shortcuts out of the jump list and moved them into the thumbnail preview for the client window, similar to the playlist controls on the Windows Media Player thumbnail.
Overall, there’s some nice features that have been added but unless you’re a social network user (and statistics say you are), you’re probably not going to see a significant difference between 2010 and the current version; it’s still in beta though, so there could be more features on the way but I think that’s unlikely.
An interesting, though brief look into the exciting life of a Windows 7 user!… I feel more and more like I’m being left behind though. At least I can have some closure in the fact that they didn’t add a whole lot, but it is good to see they’ve finally added a Ninja emoticon.
Indeed, but no pirates. Clearly Microsoft are pro-ninja.