Windows Live Messenger - What. How. Why.

The Discussion

• 

  Yeah, I was wondering why the "Yahoo Interop" was followed by a deletion...The most alarming thing wasn't that the Yahoo section was cut-off, but that c9 actually edited a video
  

• 

  Comment removed at user's request.

• 

  Sorry about the editing folks. It had to be done because DateTimes were mentioned, which, if you work in the industry, are far from static entities.

  Of course I meant children in a positive way I love Niners!

  If you want more questions answered, just ask here. I'm certain folks from the video will watch this thread unwind.

  C

• 

  I feel so neglected; Charles hasn't mentioned my new Avatar+Quote combination j/k It's because my avatar exposed secret proprietary code, right?
  
  I love the interviews which involve whole teams; those are the coolest.
  
  Oh well.
  

• 

  Comment removed at user's request.

• 

  That's a good question. The answer is "yes-ish".  We have people on our team dedicated to this very task. The first beta version of 8.0 had significantly worse performance than 7.5 - while the final version of 8.0, has accross the board, slightly better performance than 7.5, thanks to those folks. 
  
  The real issue is that we're getting bigger. As we do so, we continually make performance improvements on every piece, but we have more pieces so it adds up to something that looks like status quo. I guess that's not very comforting if you're hoping for drastic improvements, but perhaps be comforted in knowing this is an area we take seriously and pay close attention to.

• 

  Yaay. The team answered some of our questions. Whoowhoo.
  
  This video is cool. It showed about how msn servers work generally.
  
  I did not know about the fact that sharing is encryped. That is good. Now if only we can get messages we send to our friends encrypted using public key crypto, that would be good. This is so that no one in my LAN can read my msn messages.
  
  
  About the add-ins, I was looking for the templates that you add to Visual Studio 2005 and begin programming custome dlls for messenger, but I could not get the template as described by MSDN. So if we can get a direct link to it that would be great.
  
  
  
  I wanted to ask the team, if it would be possible to allow voice chat rooms into messenger. so that a group of friends would talk live to their friends. This would be so cool because it open up new ways to collaborations with friends in distant places, and in a group. So if your working on a homework project, you can go on msn chat rooms and talk using microphone with 5 other people in your class or something. So a conference feature is cool in messenger. It would make messenger the ultimate messenger for all needs.
  
  One problem though is that such chat rooms would need to be monitored for bad people and the like. But this is already solved, by only allowing people in your messenger list to join your conference. So if I want to talk to the 273 people in my list, i can invite them all into a conference and talk using voice and text. Others who are not in my contact list would not be able to join unless I add them to my list.
  
  Furthermore, regarding the add-ins features in messenger. I would like an api that would allow me to programmatically change my display name or display picture. There are many good applications for this, but one example , is to make a display name scroller or a display image changer every 5 mins or so. Hey there is a kid in every one of us, isnt that so Charles?
  
  
  
  Keep up the good work. I see messenger getting better day by day.
  
  
  

• 

  How about making a 'lite' version without
  

  • Sharing folders,
  • All those things down the left side of the main messenger window (alerts, etc.),
  • Contact Cards,
  • Backgrounds,
  • Winks,
  • Dynamic Display Pictures,
  • Ads
  • Any of the other useless 'features' I missed.

  Live messenger is great and out of all the messenger clients I've ever used it's definately my favourite.  But it could be so much better without all that extra stuff.  Simplicity and performance should be your two most important features.
  

• 

  jsampsonPC wrote:

  Yeah, I was wondering why the "Yahoo Interop" was followed by a deletion...The most alarming thing wasn't that the Yahoo section was cut-off, but that c9 actually edited a video
  

  
  
  Watch the news, Windows Live Messenger will support Yahoo Messenger clients (or contacts) and vice-versa "soonish".
  
  I'm still downloading the video, it's quite large.
  

• 

  A very refreshing and lovely video.

  I liked the team interview answering and questioning approach.

  The sound was good as well.

  I am off to a Dallas .net User Group meeting at Microsoft.

• 

  Comment removed at user's request.

• 

  Cool video, and WLM is a great product (something I'd love to work on too) - it is my social life
  
  One thing I'd like to see, is now that we have custom emoteicons (well since 7.5) is an ability to back them up somehow.
  
  On the Yahoo interop, I use both, Yahoo for mail alerts and when WLM is down. I've just signed up for the Yahoo beta to add WLM contacts, not tried it yet though.
  
  

• 

  Wahoo! I've been waiting for this interview for a year now!

• 

  A most excellent video.  I love to see what happens behind these clients and this video definately showed how things work behind the screen. 
  
  Yeah, the first thing I do when I get a client running is turn off the tabs, nudges/winks, shared backgrounds, turn off sounds.  I think the tabs are the most annoying thing, at least to me.  So its nice to see I can turn off a feature I don't like.
  
  As for allowing plugins. Woohoo!  way to go!  I bet there will be many plugins to come..  I look forward to looking at what is available as in the API and what we can do.
  

• 

  W3bbo wrote:

  

  jsampsonPC wrote:Yeah, I was wondering why the "Yahoo Interop" was followed by a deletion...The most alarming thing wasn't that the Yahoo section was cut-off, but that c9 actually edited a video

  
  
  Watch the news, Windows Live Messenger will support Yahoo Messenger clients (or contacts) and vice-versa "soonish".
  
  I'm still downloading the video, it's quite large.
  

  
  
  Didn't trillian get into some trouble over this very feature some years back? Tampering with competition software, or something?
  

• 

  Watching/Listening to it now.
  
  Whats intresting so far is the amount of women on the team.  Are women more intrested in a "social networking" type program compared to "enterprise" type apps.
  
  if you're watching this thread and if you'd like to answer, and you're a woman, what made you want to goto the MSN Live Messenger Team compared to the WinFS team.

• 

  Women tend to talk more than men So it's only natural that they develop the "talkative" application!
  
  (written tongue-in-cheek)
  

• 

  Great Video!  It's fun to see and hear the people that make a good app work.
  
  I do have a few suggestions though;
  1. It would be nice to be able to shrink the window smaller when IM'ing (like G Talk)
  2. I have to agree with the prior post about the "lite" version.   I really wont be visiting Ebay anytime soon from WLM. 
  
  In my business and in life, i try to live by the acronym, K.I.S.S.  Sometimes less is more.  You have a great product.. . Keep up the good work!
  
  BTW, Leah- are you single?  If so, how about a martini at Tini Bigs?

• 

  It's the first video I have seen on Channel9 and I liked very much although I have suggestions, ideas or just comments  about it...
  I saw somebody from the team replied here and what I want is to send a private message to her to tell some suggestions or comments...
  Can I send a PM here, 'cause I don't see it anywhere..
  Thanks!

• 

  AISBERG wrote:

  

  It's the first video I have seen on Channel9 and I liked very much although I have suggestions, ideas or just comments  about it...
  I saw somebody from the team replied here and what I want is to send a private message to her to tell some suggestions or comments...
  Can I send a PM here, 'cause I don't see it anywhere..
  Thanks!

  
  
  
  
  Better yet, can we get their msn messenger contact info so we can talk to them over messenger?

• 

  I don't think so for known reasons
  But PMs - they check it whenever they want if they want

• 

  So, I'd like to get a transcript of this video so I can count how many times the word 'so' was used.

• 

  cain wrote:

  How about making a 'lite' version without
  

  • Sharing folders,
  • All those things down the left side of the main messenger window (alerts, etc.),
  • Contact Cards,
  • Backgrounds,
  • Winks,
  • Dynamic Display Pictures,
  • Ads
  • Any of the other useless 'features' I missed.

  Live messenger is great and out of all the messenger clients I've ever used it's definately my favourite.  But it could be so much better without all that extra stuff.  Simplicity and performance should be your two most important features.
  

  Man, that already exists for the most part.  It's called Windows Messenger
  

• 

  This is one of the best most informative interviews I've seen on Channel 9 great discussion:D
  

• 

  LeahOnIm wrote:

  That's a good question. The answer is "yes-ish".  We have people on our team dedicated to this very task. The first beta version of 8.0 had significantly worse performance than 7.5 - while the final version of 8.0, has accross the board, slightly better performance than 7.5, thanks to those folks. 
  
  The real issue is that we're getting bigger. As we do so, we continually make performance improvements on every piece, but we have more pieces so it adds up to something that looks like status quo. I guess that's not very comforting if you're hoping for drastic improvements, but perhaps be comforted in knowing this is an area we take seriously and pay close attention to.

  
  
  Well, one place to start is to stop drawing your own title bars and use the standard, OS-provided ones.  Plus, then you'll get instant glass effects as well.

• 

  Steev wrote:

  Man, that already exists for the most part.  It's called Windows Messenger
  

  
  
  But if that were the case, my list would've been much longer .  Live messenger does have some nice stuff that Windows Messenger is missing.
  

• 

  I have a nasty habbit of letting first impressions control my judgement. When I tried FrontPage years ago, it was crap - I will not use it still today. When I tried Netscape years ago, it was crap - I will not use it still today, when I used Bryce years ago, it was crap - I will not use it today, and when I used MSN Messenger years ago, it was crap...but for some reason I'm using it today
  
  It's not my primary choice...I'd have to give that to YahooIM.
  

• 

  I am very concerned with the accessibility of Windows Live (WL) Messenger and the lack of international support for all features. People who use screen readers to access WL Messenger are very disappointed. My impressions as well as their impressions of the new WL Messenger are not very favourable.
  1. Messenger release after release becomes slower, heavier and takes longer to download. This is too bad because many of my friends are on dial-up and they hate having to upgrate there Messenger clients every 3-4 months. Things become even worse since Messenger is becoming larger and larger (12+ MB) and buggier. Remember: there is a reason why we all stopped using ICQ in the late 90s and started using the then simple and lightweight  MSN Messenger. The reason was that ICQ became overloaded, full of features that nobody even wanted (such as a web server) and it was full of bugs. My friends tell me: "I much prefer Windows Messenger 5.1 or 4.7 that is included with XP. Far lighter and far more accessible. Only if it had some of the good staff, such as better file transfers (without the issues with NATs) and audio conversation capabilities or the new file sharing, that's the only things I wish" I do not need all these extra visual funfair.
  2. The new WL Messenger, continuing previous trends of MSN Messenger has many visual features (boardless windows, no menubar, colour changing, whings, etc) that are not useful for the visually impared. These "new" and "exciting" features add clutter to Messenger and they make it more inaccessible. They are also a deterant against downloading and trying out the new versions as they come out. If the only important things that new versions add is more visual confusion, larger Messenger software downloads  and screen-reader inaccessibility then why upgrate.
  3. Many features are not available in our country/region: MSN Search Integration, Photo Sharing, Music Mix, PC to Phone calling, File Sharing, all Messenger tabs like Shopping, even Alerts, etc, etc. Think of any new compelling feature of Messenger 7.0, 7.5, 8.0, etc. Not available in your country/region is what we always get. What has remained to make WL Messenger a compelling upgrate? And don't tell me that this is only because of the new version. This was the situation with all previous versions, such as 7.0 and 7.5: people from less fortunate countries get a suboptimal array of services, meaning they get no services at all. In fact, why should we upgrate if the only new features we will get are visual and no practical ones, such as the new Activities and Games or PC to Phone calling, File Sharing and the Send a Message to a Mobile Phone feature, since they are alll unavailable in our country. Also, the language is not an excuse. If you do not have a localized interface for eg. the Messenger Activities or Games, then you can very well show the English language version. People have had no problems with English generally and many even choose to install the English version of the Messenger software, ignoring even the language localized one for our country.
  4. WL Messenger is very inaccessible with my screen-reader software Dolphin Supernova. Other people have issues with the Jaws screen-reader, etc. As a result nobody wants to upgrate to Messenger v8. Things that have to be fixed are:
  A) The contacts list is inaccessible (since v7.5).
  B) Now even the Send an Instant Message window is inaccessible: you cannot choose a contact.
  Effectively, we cannot IM due to accessibility issues, cannot talk through voice or video due to NAT traversal issues, cannot send files fast enough because of the same issue and cannot use the new exciting features, such as Music Mix and File Sharing or MSN Search integration because of our "wrong" country/region. I am asking you then, what can we do? Why use WL Messenger.
  The better question to ask is: what is accessible and not what is not accessible. As time goes on, WL Messenger becomes the resource hungry and very inaccessible software that ICQ once was.
  So please test, test and test again with our screen-readers. Jaws, Windoweyes, Supernova (www.dolphinusa.com), etc, etc. And don't tell us to update our screen-readers every time. Take some of the responsibility of making things accessible yourselves and don't leave it up to the screen-reader companies always. New screen-reader versions cost and they cost a lot you know. People with disabilities can much more easily migrate to another IM client if need be, instead of updating our screen-readers.
  I heard that Google Talk is very simple and provides the two most important features that we all need: Instant Messaging and Voice Conversations (without the NAT traversal and UPnP issues of MSN/WL Messenger) that by the way why have they not been fixed all these 6 years??? Google Talk to us might one day be as MSN Messenger was when we abandoned ICQ 7 years ago. I am not saying that it will happen but if Messenger keeps becoming more and more inaccessible and overloaded with visual features, whilst the non-visual ones, such as Phone Calling or Application Sharing or Voice Conversations, that are really important to us are either inaccessible or not available in our countries, then why not switch to a less feature full but more accessible client, eg. Google Talk?
  Make a simpler software. Do not hide features in complex dialogs, eg. instead of providing a submenu of activities you have to choose a menu item and they open in a separate inaccessible window. Do you think that many people use Application Sharing, Remote Assistance, Wideboard, etc  or know about it? Do you think that many people use Messenger Games or know about them? Why? Have you thaught about the reasons? You are hiding features and you do not advertise them.
  Also, instead of using standard Windows dialog boxes and controls, no you know better and you write them your own way. Don't be amaized if we have serious problems with your software then.
  What I want: A software that is as accessible as Windows Messenger but has some of the more "serious"features of MSN/WL Messenger as well in it, such as better colaboration tools (app sharing), no NAT issues and PC to Phone calling everywhere (all countries), mobile (SMS) support everywhere, etc. I also want to have the MSN Profile info of all my contacts more accessible and to encourage users to fill in this info as well. Many users currently do not have a public profile. Finally, I want some of the goodness of IRC in Messenger as well, ie. the ability to meet and get to know other people (based perhaps on their public MSN Profiles) and its scripting capabilities.
  So:
  1. We need scripting,
  2. We need IRC-like functionality, ie. the ability to make new friends,
  3. We need support for all features in all countries,
  4. We urgently need you to make this simple decision: if a feature is not available in a localized language, then show the English version instead. Why is it so difficult to make such a decision? We much rather have an English feature than no feature at all. We do not mind using the English versions of features, in fact we already use the English version of the client.
  5. We need better collaboration tools and an improved version of the current ones such as Application Sharing.
  6. We urgently need all the NAT and UPnP issues fixed like in other im clients.
  7. We need File Sharing with more than one person ie. with a group. As things stand file sharing is not useful.
  8. We need open apis to communicate with the Messenger service and not only interoperability with Yahoo but with all im services like AOL. Why should im communication be a closed system unlike e-mail. If im was an open system then we would have seen more inovation in the field and your costs of managing an im network would have gone down. Like e-mail all ISPs should be able to set up im accounts for their clients and interoperate together. Are you moving at least in this direction? Remember: You have just announced the Unified Messaging and Colaboration roadmap. It would be a pity if im is out all your unification effords. You are trying to unify telephone, voice mail and e-mail communications into a single service. Where is im? Why don't you open up your Messenger service? You will be forced to do that one day anyway.
  9. Finally, please be clear on the future of Windows Messenger. Will it be improved? Will it be withdrawn? Be specific. Why have two products anyway and create confusion?
  Thanks,
  

• 

  I think my messenger contact info should be in my profile here on 9.

• 

  Hi dannyres.
  
  Personally I think it's great for hackers/fans to play with and add on to our app. It's nice to know that hundreds of millions of people use and love the software I write. (I feel like one of those airline folks: "We know you have many choices in communications software..."). While I think pretty highly of myself, I don't think I can come up with all the creative ideas that our enormous user base will. So I'm all for developers being able to add on to messenger.
  
  The problem is that much of what the third parties write is unstable, which causes two problems:
  1. I or someone on my team has to investigate the crash only to find that it's caused by a third party add-on.
  2. We get blamed for the crashes even though often there's nothing we can do about them.
  
  Accordingly, I want to add more APIs like plugins that let users add on to messenger in a stable, controlled, approved fashion. I want these APIs to be flexible and rich enough that anything anybody would want to build on messenger would be possible.
  
  That said, we have a much more rigorous planning process than "let's do what John wants", so of course I can't promise anything. But that's my personal opinion.

• 

  cool the addin feature is great   but was the address to the blog were the apis were described? :O any sites with more info on the addins whould be cool

• 

  Charles,
  
  Please don't take this the wrong way.

  I believe everyone on this team at microsoft is intelligent. One of the wonderful things about the concept of channel 9, is that it is informal. The informal nature of this presentation means that it closely simulates how everyone interacts in real life. (On United Airlines, you can hear most communication, but if they are having a serious problem, I would not be surprised if they are able to cut the channel 9 feed, so I consider the channel 9 concept a simulation.) That being said, I believe this particular channel 9 entry closely simulates this teams' social interactions.

  What I want to point out is a general observation. Microsoft suffers from a very weak concept of diversity. It is apparently subtle, but very common.

  If you watch this video you will notice that each team member's demeanor is sort of equal. E.g., When they provide comments to Charles, they don't have to double check with anyone else about what they are saying. They each can confidently just say what they want to say. E.g., John didn't need to check with Leah about what he wanted to say.

  However, when Arti finally has a chance to talk, intelligently, about what she's working on, unfortunately, the opposite team dynamics seem to go into effect. What I mean is, I noticed that only Arti had to double check with everyone else if she can say what she wanted to talk about.

  This effect I'm describing is subtle but very common when you are not white at Microsoft. Arti is professional and should be commended for her poise. She is not the cause of the switch of team dynamics.

  So Microsoft, don't take it the wrong way, just improve please.
  

• 

  jsholmes wrote:

  Hi dannyres.
  
  Personally I think it's great for hackers/fans to play with and add on to our app. It's nice to know that hundreds of millions of people use and love the software I write. (I feel like one of those airline folks: "We know you have many choices in communications software...").

  
  
  Actually, we don't really have a choice (well, not if we want to stay legit). MSN Messenger Service is the de-facto standard for IM in the UK so I need to use it if I want to stay in touch with less technologically "talented" friends and contacts of mine. If I had my own way we'd all be using Jabber clients.
  
  Well of course, I use Windows Messenger 4.7 (pre-SP2) for good reason. There isn't anything in Windows Live Messenger that's for me, and the #1 complaint is advertising.
  

• 

  Shark_M - the MSDN docs need to be corrected...we ended up not being able to ship the VS template, but you can get started pretty easily using my blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/katieblanch/
  
  And you can use add-ins to implement your suggestions (update display name or picture on a timer).
  
  Dannyres - Can you tell us more about the scenarios you'd like to implement?  That really helps us with figuring out the priority of APIs we should add. 
  
  Also, there already is a OnStatusChanged and a OnMessageRecieved, etc.  To set things, you just do m_client.AddInProperties.UserTile = new Bitmap(); or m_client.AddInProperties.PersonalStatusMessage = "whatever"; 
  
  I think your main complaint is that you don't like the model of these properties being applied to the add-in, rather then the local user directly.  The main thinking around this is that we want to expose add-ins in multiple ways.  Right now, you can have these applied to the local user by setting up the add-in as your agent.  In the future, I'd like to see add-ins exposed as fake buddies in your buddy list as well, kind of acting like a local bot, but a bit more powerful then a server side bot because each user can configure the add-in to behave how they'd like.  Also, keep in mind...that add-ins are meant to be rather integrated into messenger so it's a different model then our other COM APIs that can be used to set/get these properties
  
  Anyway, we've still got a lot to figure out around add-ins...I'd really appreciate it if you send me some email about your scenarios and we can work that into our planning.
  

  -Katie

• 

  W3bbo wrote:

  
  
  Actually, we don't really have a choice (well, not if we want to stay legit). MSN Messenger Service is the de-facto standard for IM in the UK so I need to use it if I want to stay in touch with less technologically "talented" friends and contacts of mine. If I had my own way we'd all be using Jabber clients.
  
  

  
  
  surely im clients such as trillian and miranda are legit? :O

• 

  Btw, the Developer Solutions Team
  http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=177200
  is diverse and seems to have the proper team dynamics.

• 

  At around 16:40 when they talk about Indigo someone plays the  (rediculous "Laugh" Flash wink), perhaps they realise how annoying their product really is
  

• 

  Katie wrote:

  

  my blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/katieblanch/
  
  Can you tell us more about the scenarios you'd like to implement?  That really helps us with figuring out the priority of APIs we should add. 
  

   

  
  
  
  yay a dev post
  thanks for the link to the blog
  
  some scenarios id like to do whould be:
  -------------------------------------------------
  -chat bots (can be done now as far as i can tell)
  
  -personal messages and disp. pics for diffrent contacts
  
  -personal messeges and disp. pics for diffrent groups
  
  -ability to control the appearance of sent messages, for instance greating a gradient text message, changeing the color of each letter slightly
  
  -ability to assign the above behvaior to spesic contacts of gruops
  
  -ability to add my own stuff to the contextual menus for clients, for instance allowing me to send an email to an alternative adress.
  
  -ability to export all my custom smilys to some file
  
  
  hm.. thats the only ones i can think of right this minute
  
  a genereal request for msn8 is to be able to set in the options wether live mail (the app) or hotmail (the website) should be used for viewing mail

• 

  nektar wrote:

  <looong post>
  

  you got some really odd crits there mate.. you want a faster, smaller, simpler app but you also want irc support(or friend finding features inside the app), scripting, more advanced file sharing and many other stuff
  
  you want testing but seem to aruge that untested features should be released to everyone right away. thats why not all features are instantly translated you know.. it because they are beeing tested.
  
  you demand open support for all im. sure that be great. sadly the architecture varies between clients and companies and its not just to open up the api.. to support all the diffrent apis whould also make the app bigger and more complex, someting you didnt want
  
  there are however several other clients that support msn so it is clearly possibly to unify clients. the main problem is probobly legalities, not the lazyness of the msn team.
  
  you seem to dismiss all visual features just because you peronally cant use them. most people can use them you know. and im my oppinion one should design software primarily for the main user group, not for a small minority. sure accessability is important. but it shound not be the MAIN priority.
  
  designwise it is proboly better to focus on one usergruop instead of multiple.. an im client that is actually designed to be accessible is surely better that some sort of hybrid.
  
  you also ask why the old windows messenger is still around.. well you awnserd that question yourself. its small and light weight, it apparently has good screen reader support, it doesnt have many visual featuers to get in ones way
  
  what bugs in msn are you talking about by the way? please be more spesific..
  
  im sure the msn team like all crits tho.. contradictory ones as well

• 

  Jaz wrote:

  Watching/Listening to it now.
  
  Whats intresting so far is the amount of women on the team.  Are women more intrested in a "social networking" type program compared to "enterprise" type apps.
  
  if you're watching this thread and if you'd like to answer, and you're a woman, what made you want to goto the MSN Live Messenger Team compared to the WinFS team.

  
  
  
  Hi Jaz,

  For myself, I joined the messenger team about 10 mths ago, and before that I was working on the ".Net Compact Framework"...doing mostly low level work with the JIT and Com Interop.  I really enjoyed the technical aspect of my work there, but I was itching to work on more of an end-user application.  I'd see the applications our customers wrote (using our building blocks) and I'd get excited about the scenarios or the UI and really wanted to be closer to that action.  I participated in an MS offsite event and realized that there's this social computing space where there's still tons of work to do, and the other thing I was interested in is games.  The things that were attractive to me about Messenger were the scale and potential impact, the culture of the team, and the fact that I personally use the product.

  And yes, I definitely noticed that there were somehow a ton of women over here, including female devs and a female dev lead.  During my first 3 years at MS, I can't recall a time where I even interacted with another female dev .  I think I pretty much got used to the gender disparities back in college tho.
  
  
  

• 

  W3bbo wrote:

  At around 16:40 when they talk about Indigo someone plays the  (rediculous "Laugh" Flash wink), perhaps they realise how annoying their product really is
  

  
  
  Actually - that was Charles' cell phone

• 

  Katie wrote:

  W3bbo wrote:At around 16:40 when they talk about Indigo someone plays the  (rediculous "Laugh" Flash wink), perhaps they realise how annoying their product really is Actually - that was Charles' cell phone

  
  
  Yegads!
  
  In other news, you mentioned eventually killing off Windows Messenger, I've a few questions about this:
  
  

  • Define "Kill off", are we talking merely ending official support (but that can't happen until after Windows XP enters the extended support phase)
    • Or would you stop Windows Messenger clients from connecting to the servers?
    • How would this affect third-party Messenger Service clients?
  • Would you axe Windows Messenger 4.x or 5.x? (or both?)
  • Windows Messenger 5.x is still used in corporate environments that use Exchange 2000's IM features, how does this affect them?
  • What alternatives to Windows Live Messenger do you sanction for those seeking a cut down yet up-to-date IM client?
  • Or do I have to use either Office Communicator ($$$) or Windows Live Messenger if I want to use your service?
  • And when will you kill off Windows Messenger?

  
  As regards the interop with other services:
  

  • Add Jabber support! There's no business agreements or red-tape for that since it's an open protocol, just please don't bástardize it at all ("Embrace, Extend, Extinguish")

• 

  Katie wrote:

  the MSDN docs need to be corrected...we ended up not being able to ship the VS template, but you can get started pretty easily using my blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/katieblanch/
  

   

  
  
  Brilliant, bookmarked that! Will definately have a go at something with it later
  
  One other thing I wondered about with the yahoo stuff, is because my .net/live passport is a yahoo address will this cause any issues with WLM thinking i'm on yahoo ?

• 

  One thing I'd love to see is a trouble-shooter for P2P. It's frustrating to take down my firewall, be directly connected to the internet, and still not being able to establish a direct connection (seemingly). Perhaps it fails once and won't retry. Will it escalate to a better mode once a transfer has started? If I start sending a 10mb file through the server, then drop my firewall, it'd be nice to be able to see it transition into TCP. Uploading every second file I want to send to my webserver and messaging links is annoying enough. Now some people are conditioned to assume link=virus so they wouldn’t even accept media that way. (And don’t get me started about messenger deleting .mp3 files for my protection when I click Open after they’ve downloaded… what is going on there? Is that a plugin or is that actually what’s going on? After a 20 min send for a 3mb file through the relay from a friend in the dorm next door on our 10mbit connections… ahhhh! Sorry )
  
  In regards to advertising, no one will ever be happy or comfortable with it shipping that way as part of windows. It seemed a little easier to justify when there was an ads-free windows messenger available. With the death of Windows Messenger, that will change. I suppose the revenue is too much to ignore. If I was on the Messenger team, I'd be looking on ways to make the premium content more attractive as it doesn't seem to be doing as well as it could. But so long as the mess patch, etc can cleanly remove ads, their inclusion shouldn't bother the power users much. Otherwise there really needs to be a premium no-ads mode somewhere. I use messenger far too much to allow it to subject me to constant advertisement. But thanks for keeping it minimally obtrusive.
  
  That all said, Messenger is always going to be an exciting product. Keep pushing ahead. I like the balance you've all found in Live Messenger. With offline messages and multiple messages under a name, it's starting to feel like a far more mature product and platform. Losing offline messages functionality has irked me since getting forced into switching from ICQ to MSN by market share. The only option has been to stay connected in away mode. I can almost bring myself to sign off from messenger now... well.. we'll wait another year until everyone's upgraded
  
  Final note, the team interview was hilarious. I loved all the funny "ummmms" and such when the common suggestions (more statuses, etc) came up. Gotta love being stuck with an architecture and some HCI reqs
  
  Cheers

• 

  This is cool but how is it different from products like Trillian and GAIM which support even more than Yahoo and MSN protocols?
  
  
  Regards,
  Vincent
  

• 

  viper64 wrote:

  ...

  This effect I'm describing is subtle but very common when you are not white at Microsoft. Arti is professional and should be commended for her poise. She is not the cause of the switch of team dynamics.

  ...
  

  
  
  You gotta be kidding? You really think Microsoft doesn't embrace diversity? I - not too long ago - posted a comment about how the vast majority of C9 videos are interviewing amazing programmers who have extremely difficult-to-understand accents, because so many of them come from some other country.
  
  If anything, Microsoft hires more foreigners than locals it seems. And that isn't a bad thing, diversity is good - besides, those foreigners are hella-smart!
  
  You can't really be serious that Microsoft has a problem with diversity, seriously. I am amazed when I see more than 2 americans in a single c9 interview (not counting Charles!).
  
  But it doesn't bother me; these people are friggin brains!
  

• 

  Glad you noticed - and i promise i wasn't trying to stack the video!I think you might be right that more women are attracted to working on social networking software - but also, once you start to get a few women on the team, the culture starts to shift and it become an environment that attracts more and more women. Having been in a computer science program with WAY more men than women - i prefer it this way. Ads to the diversity and social air.

• 

  Personally, if we're just talking about the software itself, i think Messenger Plus! is rad  - i'm totally impressed. The reservations i have are related to the same reason we don't officially support it. Many people who use it don't really know the difference.  Messenger Plus! doesn't go through the same testing & security & privacy passes that we do so we worrry that if there is a problem with the software 1) messenger plus! doesn't have the same resources/incentive to get it fixed and 2) many people who don't know what's going on contact us for help, and we have a hard time helping them.  But those are just byproducts of having mass-appeal, you end up with users who are less knowledgeable about what they're putting on their PC.  Can't fault the Messenger Plus! guys for having mass-appeal, they do some great work.
  
  As for your second question - as I think Katie mentioned in the video - this is just V1 of APIs. I don't know what they're exploring specifically, but as long as the APIs are safe, i'm sure we'll look at ways to expose them.

• 

  mpspringer wrote:

  

  Great Video!  It's fun to see and hear the people that make a good app work.
  
  I do have a few suggestions though;
  1. It would be nice to be able to shrink the window smaller when IM'ing (like G Talk)
  2. I have to agree with the prior post about the "lite" version.   I really wont be visiting Ebay anytime soon from WLM. 
  
  In my business and in life, i try to live by the acronym, K.I.S.S.  Sometimes less is more.  You have a great product.. . Keep up the good work!
  
  BTW, Leah- are you single?  If so, how about a martini at Tini Bigs?

  
  
  Yup - a lite version would be nice. But then we have people who are say, using skype while they IM on Messenger because they don't know that Messenger has a calling service. We have to find a good way to expose people to our features while making those who know, but choose not to use them, happier. This is something we're looking at in our design.
  
  BTW, nice try.

• 

  LeahOnIm wrote:

  

  mpspringer wrote:  Great Video!  It's fun to see and hear the people that make a good app work. I do have a few suggestions though; 1. It would be nice to be able to shrink the window smaller when IM'ing (like G Talk) 2. I have to agree with the prior post about the "lite" version.   I really wont be visiting Ebay anytime soon from WLM.  In my business and in life, i try to live by the acronym, K.I.S.S.  Sometimes less is more.  You have a great product.. . Keep up the good work! BTW, Leah- are you single?  If so, how about a martini at Tini Bigs?

  
  
  Yup - a lite version would be nice. But then we have people who are say, using skype while they IM on Messenger because they don't know that Messenger has a calling service. We have to find a good way to expose people to our features while making those who know, but choose not to use them, happier. This is something we're looking at in our design.
  
  BTW, nice try.

  
  
  Maybe make the default "already-on-my face" features simple, and hide the other features. The other features can be turned on from options thoguh one check mark.  So the people who dont want it would use it as if this is a light version, but the others , can turn the features on if the chose to.

• 

  I like the new messenger...
  
  like the new login screen,
  like the backgrounds/winks/animated display pics
  
  one thing i don't like is the advertisments. and i'm curious about something...
  
  On Windows Live mail when i signed-up as a paid subscriber all graphical ads were removed, why does Live messenger not do the same? (I know Live mail removed the skyscraper ads for everyone with the M6 release, but when you sign up as a paid MSN subscriber all graphical ads are removed.)
  
  see more about this here: http://mailcall.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!4520.entry
  If i'm a paid MSN subscriber, live messenger should do me a favor and kill the ads.
  
  Last question, who lays claim to the WLM acronym?
  Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live Mail? :O

• 

  jsampsonPC wrote:

  

  viper64 wrote: ... This effect I'm describing is subtle but very common when you are not white at Microsoft. Arti is professional and should be commended for her poise. She is not the cause of the switch of team dynamics. ...

  
  
  You gotta be kidding? You really think Microsoft doesn't embrace diversity? I - not too long ago - posted a comment about how the vast majority of C9 videos are interviewing amazing programmers who have extremely difficult-to-understand accents, because so many of them come from some other country.
  
  If anything, Microsoft hires more foreigners than locals it seems. And that isn't a bad thing, diversity is good - besides, those foreigners are hella-smart!
  
  You can't really be serious that Microsoft has a problem with diversity, seriously. I am amazed when I see more than 2 americans in a single c9 interview (not counting Charles!).
  
  But it doesn't bother me; these people are friggin brains!
  

  
  
  I'm not kidding. All the points you make are correct. But, those points are not my point. Diversity is, as you state somewhat improperly, beneficial despite language and cultural differences (I can only imagine it's not easy to converse fluently in a second language.) So, the better we are at collaboration with people of different backgrounds, the greater win-win benefit it is to Microsoft, the welcomed employees with other backgrounds, and even you win when we beat Google because of it. No, my point is there is a subtle social clich at Microsoft that other races are rarely a part of (in my observation). And, it is naive to think that you truly embrace diversity when these social exclusions are common.

• 

  Mia'cova, I'd love to hear more about your failures to connect directly when sending a file to someone on the same network. That really shouldn't happen and it's something we are quite motivated to fix (If you're sending the file through our servers, it's costing us money. If you're sending it over your ethernet, it's not.)

  You can turn on a connectivity log under tools|options|connection|advanced that will contain a fair bit of the information I'd need to see what's up. If you could get the logs for both your machine and your buddy's machine I can have someone on my team take a look. Heck, add me to your buddy list, set up a shared folder, and put the files in there. I'll look at them when I see the gleam.

• 

  viper64 wrote:

  

  
  
  Or it could be that dev member had a feature that was still under "wraps" and did not know what they could not talk about? The guy who first mentioned Yahoo interop was edited, I can imagine that this was mentioned in the interview after he said it. So she was mindfull of what she said so it did not get more editing(we all know Charles hates editing )
  

• 

  why not putting the sharing folders in mydocuments ? would it not make more sense.
  
  also where is the quartine files stored that was mentioned.

• 

  The question around funding was interesting, I understand that you guys need to get paid for the work, how about a pay version, I pay a subscription so I don’t get adds when I use the hotmail interface so why not the same with messenger, yes I’m another Brit who hates advertising

• 

  how do I import my yahoo contacts ??

   

  ive imported my messenger ones into yahoo

   

  love it how about adding icq next

• 

  is there anyway to export my msn contacts to csv or txt file, if so how.

• 

  philsbbs wrote:

  is there anyway to export my msn contacts to csv or txt file, if so how.

  
  
  You can export them to XML (File > Save Contact List...), then perform a simple find 'n' replace (or RegEx) operation on them to convert it to CSV.
  

• 

  Skriker V1.0 wrote:

  The question around funding was interesting, I understand that you guys need to get paid for the work, how about a pay version, I pay a subscription so I don’t get adds when I use the hotmail interface so why not the same with messenger, yes I’m another Brit who hates advertising

  I want to put in another vote for a subscription service sans ads. For me personally, it's not so much a blanket dislike of ads as it is a matter of appropriateness and efficacy.
  
  I have no problems with ads in services such as Search and Local. In fact, done well, they may even be desirable--with these services there is the potential to go beyond "mere ads" and serve as a platform to help customers and businesses find each other.
  
  However with services like Mail and Messenger, ads are intrusive and irritating. The difference, I think, is that the ads have nothing to with what I'm trying to accomplish. When I use these products, I'm trying to communicate with people, usually on a personal level; ads are the antithesis of this. Frankly, trying to get me to buy something, possibly by leveraging keywords from my messages or conversations, seems desperate and attractive only to the ADD crowd.
  
  Honestly, I'd love to know more about just how profitable ads are in the real world. I realize the model would have been abandoned long ago if it was a complete failure and that, as a customer, I'm probably what's referred to as "an outlier". Still, for every normal person I know that clicks on anything that blinks, I know another who has instinctively learned to avoid clicking ads since they've become synonymous as spyware vectors. In my case, when I click on an ad, it's usually an accident--I was simply trying to click somewhere to make the page the active object so I can scroll with the spacebar and arrow keys.

• 

  So what about Lia, is she HOT or is she HOT, dahm.. just beautiful
  

• 

  I still use Windows Messenger, I think its way too much crap in the latest versions It's turning into ICQ (which everyone used back in the days). By the way, that first girl is hot! Lame comment I know, but seriously she could get $$$ as a model!

• 

  the kinda nice thing with skype though, if i want to chat with someone in antigua at 4am i can do a nice little search for that, on MSN i don't have that option, i have to know someone to be able to talk to them

• 

  cain wrote:

  How about making a 'lite' version without
  

  • Sharing folders,
  • All those things down the left side of the main messenger window (alerts, etc.),
  • Contact Cards,
  • Backgrounds,
  • Winks,
  • Dynamic Display Pictures,
  • Ads
  • Any of the other useless 'features' I missed.

  Live messenger is great and out of all the messenger clients I've ever used it's definately my favourite.  But it could be so much better without all that extra stuff.  Simplicity and performance should be your two most important features.
  

  
  
  You always have Windows Messenger for your Lite version!
  
  Edit: This is already mentioned. Should have read all the posts before responding.
  I do agree with you that Windows Messenger is actually too bland and the Live Messenger it just too bloated. I would really want something like a Live Messenger Lite as mentioned in the discussions here.
  

• 

  Great video!!! Thanks, you guys!
  
  I prefer WLM than Windows Messenger, case  it's really cool. The UI is neat and pretty cool! Keep it up, guys!
  
  Besides the protocol, such as P2P or Messenge Services, I want to know the following parts:
  
  1.Show us more background and mechanism of the Share Folders.
  2.When will you guys support secure chat? E.g. encrypt/decrypt all outgoing/incomming messages?
  3. Why not support P2P remote assistance?
  
  Anyway, I love this video!

• 

  I have 2 bloody problems with WLM!!!
  
  1. ALOT of stupid SQM files in root older (WinXP SP2!). How to disable stupid "Service Quality manager"?
  2. Stupid unremovable tabs! I don't need all this crap...stuff AT ALL!
  
  Ofcos I can hack this by installing MSNShell. But bloody WHY I need some "BBC wedding service" and other rubbish crap stuff?
  
  I think stupid banner is ENOUGH!
  
  
  PS: Beleive it or not, I'm using my cell phone for COMMUNICATION! Not for shooting pictures, not for listening music, not for
  other stuff.
  

• 

  If you want conference calling then use Skype. Skype was developed from the voice end of messeging, while MSN messenger was developed from the text end of messeging. They seem to be getting closer and closer to meeting in the middle but there are some things that each does better than the other.
  
  I personally use both. I prefer the MSN chat with all the toys like drawing and cusom emoticons, winks and nudges. However, Skype still has better voice capabillity for now, primarily for conference calling and holding one call while you take another, etc.
  
  MSN Live messenger has made a big leap in the right direction with adding dial out and text messaging support but it's not quite there. I'm sure it will get there eventually but until it does I'm sticking to using two messaging tools, meaning that in the meantime all my calls (and therefore money) are going through eBay (Skype). Sorry Microsoft.

• 

  Wow, I've only just got round to actually watching this video. I've been busy busy busy. What with just graduating with a degree in Soft.Eng.
  
  Anyway, this video was especially interesting to me as for my Dissertation (final year project) I created a .NET version on the MSN Messenger. And not just the front end, I created my own presence and message services. All very fun. This is what I want to do for a career, and if that's with Microsoft; so much the better!
  
  I'm also in the process of redesigning it, making it more usefull (as the time constraints for the project was a little shorter than I'd hoped). I'm thinking of doing it in VB.NET this time round as I've never done VB.NET before; it would be a fun way to learn.
  
  Anyway, if any Microsoft recruiter wants to talk to me about my project (or legal team ) then you're more than welcome to contact me; no really! Please!
  
  
  (Oh, I was also working on some cool encryption for all data sent to and from the services)

• 

  So this file-sharing, will symbolic links work with that, or do I have to copy every little file and folder to a users share ?

• 

  Top anti-virus, games,free software, social networking, windows, Linux and all the web apps available for free download .