Windows Live Messenger 2011 = Retarded?

[SaintessHeart]

As with Microsoft's new age marketing and program development, we users have hit another retarded new product : Windows Live Messenger 2011.

This brilliant piece of programming no longer allows you to change your screen name, only your subname.

What are your views? Good or bad?

[-KarumA-]

As I am pleased with Windows Live Messengers 2009, so I never bothered getting any new updates nor do I sit around waiting for them and installing them straighth away for the simple reason that I do not trust newer versions right after they are released. (besides is 2011 for XP also? Since the new WMP was also 7 only). I hadn't heard of 2011, not going to look it up either :/

[npal]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

As with Microsoft's new age marketing and program development, we users have hit another retarded new product : Windows Live Messenger 2011.

This brilliant piece of programming no longer allows you to change your screen name, only your subname.

What are your views? Good or bad?

You can change your name through the options, which take you to your msn profile. Other than that, yes, a pretty retarded approach to usernames

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by npal

You can change your name through the options, which take you to your msn profile. Other than that, yes, a pretty retarded approach to usernames

But you can't put your customised name there. With all the flowery stuff.

[npal]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

But you can't put your customised name there. With all the flowery stuff.

Well, I wasn't really interested in flowery extras but the fact is that they shouldn't have messed with it.

[chikorita157]

Haven't bothered with MSN for a long time since I don't like proprietary instant messaging... Have been using XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) as my instant messaging protocol... which works with anything including Gmail accounts via Google Talk and allows you to add a display name...

(another reason I don't use it because the Mac Windows Live Messenger sucks... and I'm not going to use Windows just to instant message with people.)

[synaesthetic]

What is this XMPP... I am using Trillian (windows) and Meebo IM (android)... they both sometimes annoy me.

[felix]

XMPP is a protocol. Another bastard child of XML I'm afraid.

[demonix]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

(besides is 2011 for XP also? Since the new WMP was also 7 only). I hadn't heard of 2011, not going to look it up either :/

Windows Live Essentials 2011 won't work on XP since they've stopped supporting it

[SaintessHeart]

The bloody annoying thing with Microsoft nowadays is that they keep screwing around with their products and come up with some crap...their stuff simply get harder and harder to use and manuals are getting more useless.

The "Essentials" is bloody overblown - I am only interested in the messenger service, not the other pieces of installable crap.

[Jaden]

Yeah it's too damn bloated. Same thing with the office, I rather use notepad than that stuff.

[C.A.]

Yes, Messenger 2011 is crap, I changed to Skype since then.

[Sety]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

What is this XMPP... I am using Trillian (windows) and Meebo IM (android)... they both sometimes annoy me.

Try out Pidgin? I found it abit nicer to use than Trillian, bit bare bones but its pretty reliable.

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Sety

Try out Pidgin? I found it abit nicer to use than Trillian, bit bare bones but its pretty reliable.

Second that if you are on Windows and Linux... For Macs, Adium is a really good open source instant messaging client based on Pidgin, but has a native client...

If you use GMail already, just add your GMail address to Pidgin and you can talk to anyone on any server instantly. For me, I choose to host my own by using OpenFire.

[synaesthetic]

I meant Pidgin and typed Trillian for some odd reason.

I like Pidgin due to its simplicity and minimalism, but it can sometimes be crashy.

I like Meebo IM likewise due to simplicity and minimalism, but it can usually be crashy, and it doesn't have a black background/white text color scheme, which is helpful to save battery life on smartphones with AMOLED displays.

[felix]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I like Pidgin due to its simplicity and minimalism, but it can sometimes be crashy.

Sometimes simplicity = "made it ourselves from scratch" (or "used this special 3rd party library nonsense"), which means it's sometimes lower and (almost) always more memory intensive; just because using the same library as everything else running on the system is both already loaded and also shared by all your applications. Simplicity to me has always been something like: ok Windows Live Messanger (50k) + Yahoo (another 50k) and oh this Digsby thing does both and mail and is only 20k, Pidgin does it with just 10k, oh but Trillian does all that and is 3k, thus Trillian is the simplest. No really I just copy/pasted my logic for that one. One common theme I see in a lot of programs I use is that if it's something that is gonna run in the background (like a messenger) I'm not really gonna use that many features of (if any), so smaller is better; because it's always running but rarely being used. I'd compare processor time, but don't really have a accurate method of measuring so just go with less memory used = less processing = faster speed -- which is complete arbitrary bull, but whatever.

[synaesthetic]

I'm talking about UI design, not memory usage... I have 4GB of RAM, I don't care if my IM app uses 50k or 10k when I barely notice Firefox using 800MB when I have 30 tabs opened.

[Vexx]

I think most IM is 'retarded' but then I also think Twitter is retarded.

I have not really found a use for it that other protocols didn't already handle... though cyber-diversity is a good thing.

[Alchemist007]

The second they changed the UI I said "fuck it" and went back to 8.5 beta. It doesn't force update