Inside Windows Live Messenger:: News

Messenger 8.1: Bye Bye Beta

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:49:22 GMT

posted by Nicole

There's a happy sound from the offices down the hall
And the offices upstairs too.
And our email inboxes are getting filled
With congratulations mail, woot, woot.... woot, woot!

So long farewell, auf weidersehen later
Lata’, lata’, to beta, beta, beta

OK OK - enough silliness as you can likely tell the Messenger team is SuperExcited about about releasing Messenger 8.1 without the Beta tag.

Important Details:

Get Messenger 8.1 (build 178) here
Send feedback here
Talk about it here
Get support here

What does it mean to not have the Beta tag?

I am sure you are all familiar with having a "beta" tag of your own. Well ok you are likely not walking around with a sticker on you that says beta - but maybe you have a new driver sign on your car, or a trainee button at a new job. This is so people give you a little bit more room and are understanding when you make hopefully small mistakes. You eagerly learn how to drive safe or all the ins and outs of your new job and when you are ready the "beta" tag comes off. With the help of all our Beta users who gaves us a bit of extra room and sent in great feedback - Messenger 8.1 is ready for our tag to come off and to be used by all our users.

What is new since the Messenger 8.1 Beta Refresh?

Beta Tag is Removed

Messenger is available in 8 new languages

Bulgarian - Messenger ви казва: Здравейте!
Estonian - Messenger ütleb: Tere
Croatian - Messenger kaže: Zdravo
Latvian - Messenger saka: Sveiks!
Romanian - Messenger spune: Salut!
Serbian Latin - Messenger kaže: Zdravo
Thai - Messenger พูดว่า: สวัสดี
Ukrainian - Messenger повідомляє: Привіт

If you don't speak the languages above the phrase is "Messenger says: Hello"

Vista Flash Crash Improvement

As you may recall if you have an old version of flash, Vista and Messenger 8.1 Beta the client was prone to crash. I still highly recommend you update your flash player if you haven't already. But if not we have put in and an extra safety measure (disable features that use flash and provide you a way to upgrade) to eliminate the flash crash.

E-mail invitation when adding a new contact

And more bug fixes to improve your IMing experience - including improved connectivity!

Wow! is Microsoft releasing anything else?

Yes indeed! Both Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will be available tomorrow (or today depending on where you live).

What does Vista have to do with Messenger 8.1?

Messenger 8.1 was updated to work well with Vista.

What is new since the Messenger 8.0 (in case you didn't use the Beta)?

Roaming Identity - Your display name follows you any place you sign into. Now your display picture and personal message will follow you too. If you would prefer they stayed in place you can turn this off (Tools->Options->General -> Sign In -> "Use the same display picture....")

Contact Card - The contact card has gotten a updated look. Instead of a flip it does a slide to toggle between the Spaces and Contact information. Also no more squinting at an icon and trying to figure out what it means the actions on the card are now listed out plain and simple.

Emoticons, Winks, Backgrounds, Display Pictures - The menus have gotten an updated look. They include a recently used list and easy access to featured content so you can get new emoticons, winks, background and display pictures to use. hint: typcially in the featured section the first 4 are free.

SMS Phone Book - You now have a quick way to send SMS to a phone number or add phone numbers for your contacts. Just click the cell phone icon in them main window for a good time.

New Contact Emotion - In 8.0 all our icons got an update but we forgot a very important one. The contact emoticon. Type (M) to send it.

Status Menu includes Sign Out - We noticed people look in the status menu to sign out and so ta-da now you can sign out from the status menu.

Report abuse - Here is something you will hopefully never need to use, but it is there just in case in the help menus.

Vista Presentation Mode - When you are in Presentation Mode on Vista Messenger will change your status to busy so you can avoid the embarrassing situation of everyone reading your IMs! Don't worry if you want to show Messenger in your presentation you can turn this off (Tools->Options-> Personal-> My Status -> Show me as "Busy"...).

Behind the scenes changes - This release also includes changes to the "guts" of some of the features. The goal is for these changes to improve your experience. Please let us know if that is not the case.

Personal Invitation - When you add a new contact you can add a message so they know who you are. Especially helpful if your email address is something like ILoveMessenger(at)emaildomain.com - since there are so many of us out there.

For screenshots check this and this out.

Awesome! How do I get it again?

You can get Messenger 8.1 (build 178) here right now OR
If you are running one of the Messenger 8.1 Betas you will be notified about the update very soon, but why wait?

Great! When is the next version of Messenger shipping?

Unfortunately I can't share that information with you. The best way to keep up-to-date on all things Windows Live Messenger is to sign up for MessengerSays Alerts. There is some very exciting stuff happening soon so I highly recommend doing this.

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If you have a comment/question/concern/discussion topic/rant/rave/other - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Messenger 8.1 Beta has been refreshed

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:34:05 GMT

posted by Nicole

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Beta has been refreshed for you IMing enjoyment!

Important Details:

Get Messenger 8.1 Beta Refresh (Build 168) here
Send feedback here
Talk about it here
Get support here
Learn more about Messenger 8.1 Beta here and here

What is a refresh?

We have collected your fabulous feedback on Messenger 8.1 Beta and have made improvements to Messenger based on it. Your experience should be improved if not, please send us feedback so we can continue to work on it.

note: If you are using Mesesnger 8.1 Beta you will be prompted to install the Refresh (build 168) soon.

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If you have a comment/question/concern/discussion topic/rant/rave/other - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Add Your Yahoo! Friends to Windows Live Messenger and get a chance to win a trip!!!

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:43:33 GMT

Posted by Ali

Attention Windows Live Messenger users!!! Now you can win a trip to visit your friend!! Here is what you need to do for a chance to win:

1. Use Windows Live Messenger (if you aren't using Windows Live Messenger - download - it's free!)

2. Add at least one Yahoo! friend to your contact list

3. Enter the contest here

It is that easy!! Next thing you know you will be on your way to visit your friend.

It is SO exciting that now we can talk to Yahoo! buddies on Windows Live Messenger. If you crave more information about it, see Leah's blog entry about it.

Hurry up and enter soon, the contest ends on November 21, 2006

If you have a comment/question/concern/discussion topic/rant/rave/other - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Please ignore the build behind the curtain...

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:11:16 GMT

posted by Nicole

Messenger 8.1 is currently under going a private beta - this is to help us find and fix bugs\problems with the up coming release before we release it to the world.

Please don't install builds if you are not part of the Beta.

Please don't install builds that are not from Microsoft.

Please do sign up here if you want to be a Microsoft beta tester in the future: http://connect.microsoft.com/

If you have a comment/question/concern/discussion topic/rant/rave/other - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Windows Live Messenger 8.0.0812 - Released!

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:13:58 GMT

posted by Leah

You know that feeling you get when you wake up, and you’re SOO hungry? You go into the kitchen, scramble some eggs, maybe throw in some peppers and onions and cheese and mushrooms and sausage. You fry up some bacon, heat up some hash browns, put some jelly on toast and cream cheese on bagel and gravy on biscuit. When everything is hot and ready, you sit down at the table, pick up a fork (or two) and dig in…

…but wait! Something is missing! THE SALT! You forgot to add a dash of salt! It may seem little, but it makes a huge difference.

***

As of yesterday, a new version of Messenger 8.0 is now ready for your downloading pleasure - version 8.0.0812. Think of this release just like that little dash of salt on your big delicious breakfast. Almost nothing has changed to the perceptible eye – but enough to make a difference. Specifically:

- Many people will notice serious improvements to the quality of audio and video

- Fewer messenger crashes, hangs, and connectivity issues.

***

The Tale of one (now fixed) Bug In Messenger

Over the past few months “error 80004005 – Can’t Log In” had become our #1 customer support issue. A few dedicated customers (some of whom posted their findings to this blog!) discovered a correlation:

“Before I got this error, I had just changed my friendly name to something REALLY long w/ emoticons.”

That was the key! In messenger, we have a max-length for friendly names. When you sign-in, we check to make sure your friendly name is under this max. But we were calculating the length in two different ways:

Say limit is 6 characters per friendly name. Messenger would let me type “LeahJ” no problem, because it was counting the whole emoticon as one character, and thus my friendly name was 5 characters total. But the next time I tried to sign-in, Messenger would do a check which would count each character of the emoticon separately and thus “Leah:-)” added up to 7 characters, which is over the max limit of 6. Error.

Thanks to the customers who stuck with us to help identify the problem. We couldn’t have done it without you! Now everyone – go get the latest version – it’s good for you!

_______

If you have a comment/question/concern/discussion topic/rant/rave/other - please head over to the Windows Live Messenger Newsgroup.

Help Celebrate Messenger's Birthday

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:24:29 GMT

posted by Leah

Here is a very short list of things that are awesome:

Birthdays
Free stuff

Part 1: Birthdays

Recently, I learned that the first version of Messenger shipped on July 22, 1999. I checked my calendar, did a little math, and realized, Hey - Messenger is about to turn seven years old.

Always looking for an excuse to celebrate, I started thinking…

“Let’s throw a birthday party!”

I talked to Kerry, a fellow PM, who asked three super-awesome companies, 3H, Kiwee (American Greetings Interactive) & Quebles (Mobile Money), if they’d like to help celebrate. They must have known about the very short list of things that are awesome, because they said “Absolutely.”

Part 2: Free Stuff

All three came through with fantastic FREE “party favors” such as winks, backgrounds, emoticons, and display pictures to celebrate the big day.

To congratulate Messenger for making it to the ripe old age of seven, Kerry and I developed this scheme to try and get as many people as possible spreading the “Happy birthday, Messenger!” message…but we need your help!

1) Checkout the links below, and download whichever “Happy Birthday!” items you want – they’re ALL FREE – designed just for this occasion.

-      3H

-      Kiwee (American Greetings Interactive)

-      Quebles (Mobile Money)

2) Show them off and tell people how to get them too. Share the backgrounds, send the winks, use the emoticons and display pictures. If you’re a blogger – put links to the free stuff on your blog, or trackback to this post.

On the big day, July 22, I’ll tally up all the people who helped celebrate (by downloading the free stuff). Let’s shoot for the biggest, baddest, birthday bash ever!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WINDOWS LIVE MESSENGER!

[update] Thank you, Marc, for leaving a link to this Happy Birthday, Messenger video. Fun!

***

3H has translated their Messenger Birthday download page into these other languages:

Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Malaysia, US, Singapore, South Africa, Canada, UK, Taiwan, Mexico, Latam, Brazil, FR Canada, Germany,Italy, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Swiss FR, Swiss German,Netherlands, Spain, Belgium Fr, Belgium Dutch

Windows Live Mesenger - The Final Release

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:34:59 GMT

posted by Leah

[Updated] Time to do a little (or big!) dance. Messenger is now availbable in all markets. http://messenger.live.com is the magic URL.

A new version of Windows Live Messenger is rolling out tonight. <i'll add a link to the download here as soon as it's available> There is one STRIKING difference between this version and the previous versions: No matter what buttons you push or menus you expand, no matter what bed you look under or what door you check behind, no matter how hard you look – you will find NO mention of the word “beta”. As of today…

Windows Live Messenger is stamped, certified, verified, sanctified, bona fide: OFFICIAL.

Are you clapping your hands and jumping up and down? Are you spinning in circles and blowing bubbles? I’m not – but ONLY because I need my hands to blog this fantastic news.

Skeptics are asking, “Why is this exciting?”

1. Windows Live Messenger is the first major global Windows Live product to release a final version.

Leading the Windows Live charge feels all important - we're like the guy at the front of the marching band with the cool hat and the little wand leading the way for the rest of the band members.

2. Bye-bye beta means bye-bye big bugs.

The point of beta-ing a product, is to allow a smallish group of customers to try out the new stuff and alert us of any problems. Then we can fix it up and polish it off before giving the product to everyone. Since shipping the first version of Windows Live Messenger beta, we focused intensely on fixing problems found by our beta testers (many of you). This announcement: “Windows Live Messenger is official” is a way of pledging that Windows Live Messenger will now work almost exactly as it should, for almost everyone.

3. Everyone gets it.

Even though many of you have been using Windows Live Messenger for months – most people have been using its predecessor, MSN Messenger. Starting today we’re directing everyone to download Windows Live Messenger instead. MSN Messenger only lives on for people using operating systems older than Windows XP (on which Windows Live Messenger is not supported. Over the next few months, the number of people using Windows Live Messenger will multiply by more than 10 (and that’s NOT binary).

There are very few discernable differences between this version and the beta because, as I said, we’ve been doing clean up. So I’m not going to list out differences between this version and the previous, but if you’re upgrading from MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger, then you’ll be seeing A LOT of changes. You can read about all of them here, here, and here, but I’ll give you the big ticket items quickly:

- Cheap PC-Phone Calling

- Sharing files with friends through Messenger

- Unified Contacts between Messenger & Hotmail

- Improved voice quality for free PC-PC calls

- Totally updated look at feel.

- Way improved connectivity & Performance

- Messenger Dual Phone- works as a regular phone and a PC-PC phone for free calls

Along with today’s release, also comes the start of a fun partnership between Windows Live Messenger and Disney. Only those most skilled with the different Windows Live Messenger features will find the treasure in Dead Man’s Tale – a game based on the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Available to Windows LIve Messenger Users in the U.S, players will get clues to the movie's sequel (opening in July). Those who play and complete the task will get to see exclusive clips from the movie. Check tomorrow at www.deadmanstale.com for more info.

If you’re not excited about this game, then you’re obviously not as big a fan as I am of Johnny Depp, as many of my coworkers are of Keira Knightly.

Living It Up With Live Cards: GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLL!

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 06:28:12 GMT

Posted by Ines.

It’s a wired world and we are all constantly networked . The digital world has made it so easy to chat with anyone instantly around the world . Cell phone numbers, IM names, blogs, and email addresses have become the main way that people know us online. We can instantly share this information when we make new friends online. However, the reality is, and I know this may come as a shock to some of you , that there still is a physical world out there where we meet and chat with new people .

Imagine sitting at the World Cup in Germany, yelling for your favorite team who just scored a goal , and starting to talk to the person next to you who you realize is just as big of a fan of your team as you are . You’re not online right now, so you can’t just live message your contact information up in the stands. What are you to do? Well, Windows Live has the solution to your problem; introducing Live Cards! With Live Cards, you can get free windows live themed “social” cards. Just pick a template (I am big fan of the Messenger buddies card ), fill in your contact information and wait for the delivery ! Now you can just pass around your Live Cards at the world cup to share your online identity just as instantly as IM’ing. This is exclusively available in France, Germany and the UK!

Quick Update - Here are the links for the UK and Germany markets:

Live Cards UK (sorry, looks like the offer for the UK may have expired )
Live Cards Germany

Continuing with the yet so original World Cup theme of this post (I can’t help it, I am big soccer fan ), the good news is that if you want to share the “soccer fever” with your Messenger buddies and support your favorite team, you can now freely download one of the country soccer winks.

Enjoy the "football" games (I am rooting for France )...

Not Yet, But Soon: Windows Live + Yahoo!

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 09:22:31 GMT

posted by Leah

Do you know that feeling of excitement when your favorite band announces its making a new album? Do you also know the painful anticipation that follows, while you wait for the album to reach stores?

It’s been a long time since we announced the deal which would allow Windows Live Messenger people and Yahoo! Messenger peope to IM one another. The project was so top secret that many of us (myself included) found out the same day you did. And that day was SO exciting, but next came the wait… I know you’re feeling the pain too, because of the number of times I’ve read something like:

“The Betas are pretty cool, Messenger Team, but WHEN CAN I IM MY YAHOO FRIENDS?”

Well, I wanted to let you know –we haven’t forgotten! As it turns out, it’s been a hard problem to solve, and the team has been working hard, I still don’t know exactly when you’re going to be able to start adding those Yahoo! Buddies to your WL Messenger, but it can’t be much longer. Last week I got to check out a fully functional version of WL Messenger which could exchange IMs with a fully functional version of Yahoo!

They’ve still got some work to do – specifically final testing. But soon, Windows Live people will be IMing with Yahoo! people and the world will be that much closer to universal love, peace, and harmony! ….

….right?

*Shout out to the guys at Liveside. They heard about this news elsewhere and suggested it for a blog topic. I obviously liked the suggestion.

Messenger Phone Now in Stores

Thu, 11 May 2006 20:05:16 GMT

posted by Leah

This post is for all of you who use voice in Messenger and the rest of you, who should – unless you can give me a good reason why free & cheap calling worldwide is not a good thing. And this: “Because I have to sit in front of my computer while I talk” no longer qualifies a good reason.

Remember the cordless Messenger phone we announced oh so long ago? The one that works just like a regular phone OR lets you make free calls to an online Messenger buddy, OR super-cheap calls through Messenger to a phone?

You remember right? The phone that lets you sit on your couch and by pressing one button, see your buddy list? See who is online/busy/away? And by pressing another button, call any of them…without moving off the warm comfy couch?

Well, it’s finally hitting the shelves. Uniden has released the first model in the US available in most of those stores where you’d go to buy techy stuff (like Best Buy). Philips will be releasing in Europe in within the next couple weeks.

This is a fun release for us, because home phone+buddy list is a new concept. We would *love* to know what you think of them. If you go get one, please come back and share your experience.

Windows Live Messenger Beta: Open For Business!

Thu, 11 May 2006 02:47:49 GMT

Posted by Ines.

You heard it right: Windows Live Messenger Beta is now officially open to the world ! You no longer need to be invited to sign in to the latest beta release .

Just visit the ideas site, download Windows Live Messenger Beta and enjoy the latest and greatest features.

Also watch the fun clips of MSN Messenger shedding its skin and being reborn as Windows Live Messenger on the launch site.

Oh, and don't forget to spread the word!

A temporary problem in Messenger [fixed]

Thu, 04 May 2006 18:31:32 GMT

If you're having problems with the service please send email MessengerBloggers@hotmail.com for the fastest support.When we encounter problems that seem to be affecting a large group of people, (like this one) we'll report the status/solution here.

posted by Leah

[original post]

Normally, when you sign into messenger, it yells to some cloud in the sky, “Yo! Cloud! What buttons and stuff should this person be seeing?” And Cloud answers: “Yo! Messenger, show x, y & z.”

Well, apparently, right now, we’re yelling at the wrong cloud. “Yo! Cloud! You there?” And Cloud just says, “Dude, I don’t know. Ask the other cloud, maybe he knows.”

You may be noticing the problem in the form of your sharing folder icon gone missing, your beta invitations having vanished, the entry points to the messenger phone feature, a few other buttons here and there might not be where you’re used to seeing them.

Fear not! Nothing is lost except the entry points – and that is temporary. We’re working now to figure out the problem (to talk to the right cloud) I’ll post back here when the problems fixed.

[Update]

Problem solved! Messenger found the right cloud.

Messenger: “I missed you, Cloud!”

Cloud: “Aw shucks, Messenger. I missed you too.”

Messenger: “Hug?”

Cloud: “Come here, you.”

To see the results of the happy reunion, sign out of Messenger, exit the application and sign back in. If you don’t see a fixed version, wait about 30/60 minutes and try again. It takes a little while for the fix to reach every country.

****