With Aero Shake, you can close all windows except the currently active one.  Some shaking is enough: Just click in the window title bar, keep the mouse button pressed and shake your mouse (while keeping the mouse button pressed).  The result?  All other windows will hide from your desktop.  To get them back, just shake the window again.

More info: www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/shake.aspx

11 Examples of Skype Winning

#1: Contact List Interface

In Skype, you can set the main window (contact list) to include the conversation windows.  Everything is then in one place.  Might get messy at times, but looks nice.  An idea for Messenger?

#2: Aero Enhanced

Skype has two different display modes, Windows Classic (using your Windows theme), or Skype-look.  This looks like Windows Aero, but enhanced.  What do you like more, and why doesn’t Windows Live Messenger offer something similar?

#3: Chat history display

When opening a conversation window in Skype, you can choose to display the history for this contact, of yesterday, of 7 days, of 30 days or the complete history.  The messages are then shown directly in the chat window.  Messenger needs an extra window and manual date lookup.

#4: New messages when inactive

Imagine a conversation with your friend and you have to leave for a moment.  You minimize the chat window, but instead of still scrolling down when your friend sends a new message, the window will stop and just display some orange dots.  This way, when you return, you can continue to read what he sent without needing to scroll up first.

#5: Editing messages

How often did you send a message with a typo in it?  In Skype chat, you can press the [Up] key and edit your latest message.  As soon as you submit it, it will replace the original message, on the screen of your friend as well.  Using the context menu, you can edit older sent messages, too.

#6: Deleting messages

If you realize you sent a wrong message, or a text to the wrong recipient, right-click and remove it.  Messenger cannot do this at all.

#7: Messages order

You send message A, and after that, your connection drops.  You send message C.  In the meantime, your contact sent message B.  As soon as you reconnect, the messages will appear in the correct order.

#8: Signing in with no web connection

Skype has an offline mode.  You can sign in while you’re not connected to the Web.  This way, you can send offline messages when you are offline.  They get delivered when you connect.

#9: Copying messages

When you need to copy a larger chunk of chat messages, Skype auto-formats them and adds the date.  Everything looks fine when you paste your text for example into Notepad.

#10: Quoting messages

Do the test: In Skype, copy a message from a chat with contact A and paste it into the conversation with contact B.  You will see a fancy block quote—that looks really good.  And in Windows Live Messenger?

#11: Status icon

The Skype icon in the notification area tells how many contacts have unread events/messages.

A Remis—Both Do Well

#1: Multiple Points of Presence

Both Messengers support signing in at multiple endpoints.  Interesting!

#2: Extendability

Skype has an official API where third-party plugins can connect, while Messenger knows several good add-ons (Messenger Plus! Live and MessengerDiscovery being the most well-known ones).

Live Messenger Wins in Three Cases

I found three points that Messenger does better than Skype:

#1: Pasting images into the chat

Messenger will start a Photo Share or send the clipboard image as temporary JPEG image, but Skype simply ignores the paste.  Lame!

#2: Organizing contacts in categories

Correct me, but I haven’t found a way to sort my Skype contacts into categories.  The only group feature I found is for multi-way conversations.  Messenger does this job fantastically.

#3: Integration of social networking

Messenger connects successfully to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, among zillion other What’s New feed providers.  Windows Live Wave 4 (Version 2010) will even enhance this, when Messenger directly connects to Twitter and more networks.

Windows Live Essentials 2010 can be expected for next spring.

Summary: Skype wins the race (bad for Messenger!)

13 points for Skype, 5 points for Messenger: a bad outcome.
Thus, in regards to usability and small interface tweaks, Skype makes the race.

What do you think?  What would your results be in a similar chat feature race?

La soluzione è: Usare il Messenger Aero Switcher. Messenger Aero Switcher ti permette di disabilitare gli effetti Aero solo per Messenger. Per usarlo, hai bisogno di un sistema Windows Vista o Windows 7 con Aero abilitato, e dovresti avere installato l’ultima versione di Windows Live Messenger 2009 QFE2 (14.0.8089.0726).

Messenger Aero Switcher: attiva o disattiva gli effetti Aero solo per Messenger

Download gratuito: Messenger Aero Switcher 14.0.8089.0726
Ti saremo grato se riportassi eventuali problemi o comportamenti inaspettati da parte dell’applicazione.

• Come posso aggiornare Messenger? Devo farlo?
  Puoi aggiornare Messenger scaricando il suo installer web. L’aggiornamento è raccomandato, ma non ancora obbligatorio.
• Funzioneranno gli add-on per Messenger con questa versione aggiornata?
  Sì. Ecco una lista degli add-on per Messenger che funzionano:
  • Messenger Plus! Live
  • MessengerDiscovery
  • LiveScratcher
  • BuddyFuse
• Funzioneranno le skin per Messenger in PLSK?
  Questo dipende dalla skin e dalle impostazioni di “restrizione”. Per esempio, Plus!Patch ha bisogno di un aggiornamento per lavorare con questa versione. (Se sei un utente esperto, potresti facilmente modificare il file SkinInfo.xml e farlo partire; il numero di questa build di Messenger è 8089.) Will Ingles nota:

  Tutti possono aggiornare in modo sicuro la loro versione senza preoccupazioni per le loro skin. Messenger Plus! sembra funzionare alla perfezione con questa nuova build.

• Posso tenere ancora spenti i frame di Windows Aero?
  Per tua convenienza, sto lavorando ad una versione aggiornata di Messenger Aero Switcher. Torna qui per maggiori informazioni a riguardo.

• How can I upgrade Messenger? Do I have to?
  You can upgrade Messenger by downloading its web installer. Upgrading is recommended, yet not mandatory.
• Do Messenger add-ons work with the updated version?
  Yes. Here is a list of Messenger add-ons that are known to work:
  • Messenger Plus! Live
  • MessengerDiscovery
  • LiveScratcher
  • BuddyFuse
• Do Messenger skins in PLSK format work?
  That depends on the skins and their “restriction” settings. For example, Plus!Patch needs an update to work with this version. (If you are an experienced user, you may safely edit the SkinInfo.xml to get it running; Messenger’s new build number is 8089.) Will Ingles notes:

  People can safely upgrade to this new build without worrying about their skins breaking. Messenger Plus! also seems to be working perfectly fine on this new build.

• Can I still turn those Windows Aero frames off?
  For your convenience, I am working on an updated version of Messenger Aero Switcher. Stay tuned for more information about this soon.

Free download: Messenger Aero Switcher for Windows Live Messenger 2009 Final / 14.0.8064.0206 (165 kB)
As usual, if there are any problems, post a comment on them and I will have a look into it.

Messenger Plus! Scripts

Bible Quoter

Provides access to bible quotes right in the chat window (supports: ESV, > KJV, NASB, NKJV).

More info…

Bing

Searches Bing for a term and displays the result directly in the chat window.

More info…

Last.fm Scrobbler

Submits your currently playing media to Last.fm.

More info…

LiveSong

Play any song instantly. Simply enter /livesong <title or artist> and press Enter.

More info…

Music Notifier

Notifies you when your currently playing music changes.

More info…

Plus! VRT Radiospeler

Listen to all stations of the Belgian VRT, directly in Messenger.  Built in cooperation with Bram Lancsweert and VRT.

More info…

Timezone

Adds a contact clock into the chat window notification area.  You can set the timezone for each contact individually.

More info…

Tweet2PSM

Updates your personal message with your current Twitter Status, with customizable time interval.

More info…

VER Enhancer

Adds other Messenger add-ons with their versions to (!VER).

More info…

WLMStatus

Easy web display of your Messenger status, with dozens of different styles and automatic status update.

More info…

Other Tools

Clubhouse Tags WordPress plugin

Adds Microsoft Clubhouse tags to your blog feed so your posts can propagate on the Clubhouse website and on affiliated websites.

More info…

Messenger Aero Switcher

In Windows Live Messenger 2009 on Windows Vista and Windows 7, Aero is used for drawing the window frames of your contact list and conversation (chat) windows.

More info…

TxtBear WordPress plugin

Upload documents in PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS and many other formats to your WordPress site. Then make them super-accessible to your visitors with the embedded Lightbox Viewer.

More info…

Die Lösung ist: Nutze den Messenger Aero Switcher. Um diesen zu verwenden, solltest du Windows Vista mit eingeschaltetem Aero nutzen, und die neueste Messengerversion (Windows Live Messenger 2009, 14.0.8050.1202).

Messenger Aero Switcher: Aero nur für Messenger abschalten

Kostenlos herunterladen: Messenger Aero Switcher for Windows Live Messenger 2009/14.0.8050.1202 (165 kB)
Bitte berichte irgendwelche Probleme oder unerwartetes Verhalten.

What is new/changed?

• Completely compatible with Messenger 2009

  The times when only 10% of Plus! were working with WLM2009, the times when you had to use dodgy tricks to get it plugged in at all are over. We got all features, including skins, and all interfaces – just what you were used to have in older versions of Messenger. Of course, Plus! 4.79 is also compatible with Messenger 8.5 and 8.1 (compatibility for the December 2007 build of 9.0 was removed as its users are anyways forced to update to the most recent beta these days).

  You might ask…

  “How to remove those dodgy Window frames on the contact list and chat windows? I liked the integrated style more, like 8.5 was…”

  There is no option in the Messenger Plus! preferences to revert the windows to the old style. However, skins do have the possibility to define window shapes. As soon as you apply a skin doing exactly this, Plus! will take care of the rest and remove the Aero frames properly.

  “Where is the Plus! button? I can only find 3 buttons in the toolbar.”

  Click the top toolbar expander to show the main toolbar. On its right side, next to the colorize icon, you will also find the Messenger Plus! icon. The rest of the Plus! icons are, as usual, in the formatting toolbar.

  “I would like to revert my contact list and/or chat window design to what it was like in Live Messenger 8.5.”

  Well, as the change of the user interface is a design change, there is not an option in the Plus! preferences. Nevertheless, you might consider using a skin to reconstruct the contact list and/or chat window. There is the technical possibility to create such a skin, and we will have to see who is the first to take the chance.

• Support for Groups

  Maybe you already noticed that the formerly called groups have been renamed to categories, making place for a new, more powerful feature: the Groups. Messenger Plus! 4.79 fully supports them, while displaying an appropriate icon on the tabbed chats bar and logging the contents in its own chat log file for each group.

• Enhanced display picture support

  Notifications about contact events, also known as toasts, now support the contact’s display picture. Furthermore, the Contact Info window as well as the notifications, support animated display pictures (GIF format) instead of only showing the first frame of the picture.

• Other improvements

  More new and changed things in Messenger Plus! 4.79 are not visible to the “normal” user. These include:

  • Enhanced copy/paste function lets Messenger handle images.
  • Skins: New element named “FrameCount” has been added to picture’s Metadata, allowing better animations.
  • When chatting with more than 2 people, the size of the header in chat logs is now reduced.
  • The Repair Wizard now ensures that the files in the Scripts and Skins directory have the proper security attributes.
  • Contacts from Yahoo! Messenger are now handled better by Messenger Plus!.
  • The Resource Extractor has been improved for Messenger 9.

You can read the complete Changelog for Messenger Plus! 4.79 on the Official Website.

Where can I download Messenger Plus! Live 4.79?

Plus! 4.79 is available for free download in 22 languages. Try one of the following locations:

• Download Messenger Plus! Live 4.79 (official download site), mirrored and load-balanced (4.7 MB)
• Download mirror by mynetx

Be sure to check out what additional downloads are available:

• Scripts to add even more, even specific, functions to your Messenger
• Skins, including anything from just a slight UI change up to a completely renovated Messenger look. Make sure the skin you download is compatible with your Messenger version; each download has compatibility info texts attached.

I have problems installing or using Plus! 4.79. How to solve them?

Probably it is the best to browse the Official community forums, located at www.msghelp.net. You are almost sure to get immediate help, usually within minutes, with any problem you might have. These forums are your best source for information and solutions concerning your Messenger and Plus!. And if you don’t find an answer to your problems: feel free to add me to your contact list and I will see if we find a solution together.

Have fun chatting in a whole new way!

But there is a good message as well: you can get rid of those thick window frames. Know how? Let’s see.

1. Right-click your Desktop wallpaper, and choose Personalize.
2. In the opening window, click the item Windows Color And Appearance.
3. At the bottom, there is a link named Open Windows Classic Appearance Properties. Click it.
4. Next, press the button Advanced.
5. Open the dropdown next to Item, and select Border Padding.
6. Now, in the Size field, enter whatever you want to, while 4 is the default value.
   0 will shrink the frames to their minimum.
7. Press OK twice, and close the Control Panel window. You’re done!

If you chose to disable those borders completely, this is what you should see now: