I have to say I don’t :heart: the MSN network and I couldn’t understand why everyone, in Singapore particularly, started converting from ICQ to MSN. That was about 3 years ago when it all happen! Everyone got stuck to MSN because Windows XP comes with it and new users just conveniently used it. I see lesser and lesser people online each time I turned on ICQ and then it’s my turn to switch over when literally all my friends were on MSN. I missed the timestamps on each messages and most importantly the ability to send offline messages that my friend could receive the next time they come online. Now, here is where the new Windows Live Messenger finally caught up to!

I know this post seemed irrelevant to be here but either I’m too excited or I just hope everyone do junk the old MSN Messenger and get the new Live Messenger.

In case you are still lost, Windows Live Messenger is the next version of MSN Messenger. With Live Messenger, now you can:

• Send offline messages to your friend so they can receive the messages once they get online! Just like ICQ!
• Show timestamps on your messages! Isn’t it nice to know when you send your messages?
• Scroll and view your message log with ease! MSN Messenger used to scroll the log back to the last line each time you receive a new message making it tough to read through past messages especially on a group chat.
• Send and receive files of all extensions without getting blocked. It doesn’t really make things safer when MSN Messenger tries to block certain file extensions from being sent or received. It merely made us irritated going to rename the file extension just to send it over to our friends.
• Use more system memory than before. Yes, this is a bad thing for those with less than 512 MB of mem as it may slow down your computer!

That’s it! I’m just not bothered about the other new features which are not useful to me (or maybe you) anyways. I’ll just be teaching you how to get it configured! (I’ve had friends who can’t find the options, so…)

Before:

After:

I’m too lazy for one more screenshot so I hope you can find where to open up the Options dialog. (*Hint*: There’s a small arrow just beside the minimize button on the top right of your contact list or you can hit the “Alt” key to show the menu bar.)

On the General tab, I would uncheck all the 4 Sign In options. I don’t need Live Messenger to load each time I log on to windows. There are so many friends whom I’ve known closing the window that pops up each time they sign in. You can disable that by unchecking the “Show Windows Live Today after..”.

Yeah, “Show timestamps on messages”.. Must have!

Uncheck that “Automatically reject..” and save your friends the hassle of renaming/zipping up the files they are trying to send you. You’re better off getting a free Antivirus software like avast! than rejecting the file transfers anyways.

The irritating tabs.. Must “Hide tabs”!

Finally, to set your contact list to show your contacts’ Display Picture like before.. Check “Show Details”. (They should have had that in the Option dialog seriously, I was cursing the first time I used Live Messenger and almost thought the left that feature out. :whistle:)

Yeah, this is the end of the boring/useful/stupid (choose one) post. You should have known it the moment you clicked on “Read the rest of this entry”, remember?