I am using Messenger 2011 with multiple endpoints signed in (MPOP). When I sign out on one endpoint or close a chat window there, it gets closed on all other endpoints as well. Is there a switch (registry or so?) to disable this behavior?

Here’s the explanation and answer. I thought I’d share it with you because it is interesting:

From Messenger 2011, you can choose to sign out from only the current location, or all other endpoints. Chat windows on the other hand are closed across all online endpoints. There is no switch to disable this behavior. But there is an option in the “History” category to “show my last conversation in new conversation windows”. This should let you resume a conversation from a new endpoint if it was closed from another.

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?

mynetx: Nice to see you! Windows Live and You—that includes some personal questions as well. You could start with describing yourself and your connection with Windows Live, in one sentence.

Jonathan Kay: I am Jonathan Kay and currently a Microsoft MVP for Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger), assisting in Microsoft Messenger related newsgroups since 2001. I also run my own Messenger blog.—Gah, two sentences!

mynetx: An MVP?

Jonathan Kay: [Microsoft] Most Valuable Professional. It’s a yearly award given to people who’ve been identified by Microsoft as making a significant contribution to their community.

mynetx: Ah. So they consider you making significant contributions to the Windows community?

Jonathan Kay: Well, Windows Live community. Prior to their being a “Windows Live” MVP category, it was all bunched in with Windows, but right now it’s separate.

mynetx: Helping other, inexperienced users to get their, for example, Messenger working is interesting work, isn’t it.

Jonathan Kay: It is, not to mention quite satisfying. You also gain a lot of knowledge and experience in other related areas by doing it.

mynetx: Since when are you in the Live business? Tell me a bit about your history.

Jonathan Kay: Well, when I got my first modem 1992-ish, text-based real-time communication attracted me pretty quickly. I spent many hours dialed up to local bulletin board systems just chatting to people in my own city. This fascination carried over to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) when I got Internet access a few years later and then gave way to what we would consider modern instant messaging with ICQ in 1996. In that time span, I met some really extraordinary people which led my interests to obtaining my first MVP award in 98 for Internet Explorer. As IM has evolved, so have I, which brought me to being given the MVP award as a top contributor in the Messenger community in 2001. This has carried on since, all the way to Windows Live Messenger and I’ve continued to meet some exceptionally brilliant people.

mynetx: Like?

Jonathan Kay: I won’t name names because it’s far too easy to forget one and the whole community is just filled with them. Yourself included naturally…

mynetx:

What is your favourite feature in Messenger?

Jonathan Kay: If you mean favourite feature of all time, that would be really difficult to answer since there’s a lot to choose from. Earlier this year, In the brief webcast that was done at the MVP Summit, I mentioned What’s New as my favourite new feature, which is still true, but I had forgotten that MPOP (Multiple Points of Presence) was also an option so I think I’ll go with that here. MPOP is a really well implemented feature and being able to seamlessly move from one client/device/location to another is just excellent. It will be even better once more software/devices support it.

mynetx: What devices are you using MPOP from?

Jonathan Kay: Myself personally, just my desktop, server or laptop. Conversations can just continue as you go off to do something else, or need to reboot one machine, it’s great. But there’s lots of other scenarios that would be very nice too that I know people are just waiting for (like Xbox for instance).

mynetx: And what do you like most in Windows Live at all?

Jonathan Kay: Obviously I need to say Messenger as it’s my “first love” as it were, but there are certainly lots of awesome products under the brand. I think what I like most about everything in general is just how everything works together. For example, if you’re logged into a Hotmail-enabled account in Messenger and the same account in Live Mail, when you receive an e-mail to that account, you’ll be notified in Messenger, Live Mail will immediately have the message ready and if you log into the Hotmail website, it will all be synchronized with the desktop application. Photo Gallery is able to make use of your existing contacts’ information and can publish photos to Live Photos or third party sites (Flickr, Facebook, etc.). There are similar functions across all the products and I’m looking forward to more of this in the future. I certainly don’t believe anyone else has offered this sort of integration story previously, especially not with third party sites and for no cost.

mynetx: True, Windows Live offers unique features—for free. However, I think there are still many good ideas for new features to be implemented into Messenger. What is one thing you’d love most to be added to Messenger?

Jonathan Kay: Oh, most definitely. I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t have their own personal Messenger feature wish list.

Personally, I’d like to see some resources allotted to revisiting and enhancing some of older well used features in Messenger. There is a lot of functionality that has remained relatively unchanged since first introduced that is really in need of updating. A lot of these—custom emoticons, message history, and other core features originally showed up in MSN Messenger 6 (circa 2003) and are really due for some upgrades. Also, because there’s no way I can limit myself to one here, I’d also like to see some options to explicitly control parts of Messenger’s interface. For instance, I would love to be able to decide who and what sign in events specifically generate a toast on my screen.

Of course, the Messenger community provides some great options for overcoming both of these today.

Oh also, I’d like to see group and multi-person functionality continue to evolve more, such as multi-person voice conversations. Okay I’ll stop now!

mynetx: Lol, seems like there is much to do. Do you think any of these will be added in Windows Live Wave 4? If so, which are most likely, in your opinion?

Jonathan Kay: Really hard to say as they’re certainly tight lipped. However I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

mynetx: On to your personal habits… Running Messenger 24/7? Maybe you’ve got kind of a daily routine with Windows Live.

Jonathan Kay: For the most part I leave Messenger running all the time. I have no specific routine, but I certainly make use of a variety of the Live services every day (Messenger, Mail, Spaces, and so on).

mynetx: When you’re using Messenger intensively, I’m sure you’ve got a breaking tip for an “aha” effect. Give me a tip you consider precious

Jonathan Kay: Let’s see, there’s probably better ones, but one unobvious thing is you can drag (the icon of) completed files in the conversation window elsewhere to your desktop, to other conversation windows to resend, or to another application, such as a music player’s playlist to queue up a just transferred song.

mynetx: Hey, great tip! Didn’t know that myself either.

And finally, are you currently working on any Live-related project?

Jonathan Kay: I have a few ideas rattling around in my brain, but I’m not working on anything specifically that’s Live-related presently.

mynetx: Fine! Your last small project you made with PatchWise, was a good idea as well. Did you start right away on the tool for preventing automatic PhotoShare in Messenger, when you read about the patch?

Jonathan Kay: Well I checked to see if someone else had done made anything yet, and they hadn’t, so I thought I would make it easy for everyone.

mynetx: And you did! What download counter do you currently have?

Jonathan Kay: I just let the data accumulate in web logs and use a PowerShell script to extract and do the sum calculations. I haven’t felt the need to do much more than that, as the real reason for my redirect links is just so I can easily move it to another hosting location if I needed to.

mynetx: True… Have anything else to tell my readers?

Jonathan Kay: Yes, if they’ve made it this far, then I appreciate their time going through all this and hopefully it was at least somewhat interesting. And thank you for the opportunity to be on here.

mynetx: No problem—thank you for taking the time to talk with me about Windows Live and You!

Jonathan Kay: You’re very welcome

mynetx: Nice that I may talk with you a bit about Windows Live and You. Would you mind introducing yourself and your Windows Live relation in one sentence?

Siebe: I’m Siebe Tolsma, and I work as a Software Development Engineer at Microsoft in Canada. I’m with the Windows Live Platform team, who ship the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit

mynetx: What’s that?

Siebe: It’s a toolkit which helps developers add Messenger functionality to their own websites. It consists of two parts — The first is a set of fully skinnable UI controls. The second is a javascript library that can be used to build similar functionality from the ground up.

mynetx: Ah – like custom Messengers running from the Web?

Siebe: Yes, exactly. Developers can add Messenger to their website, so their visitors can now interact with their buddies right from the web… and of course bring new visitors to your website that way.

mynetx: Competition to traditional Web Messengers, like eBuddy or Meebo, in your opinion?

Siebe: No, I think of it more of a way to provide additional functionality to developers, whereas Meebo and eBuddy only have the core web messenger functionality. For example, with our toolkit, you can very quickly and easily set up some controls and code to enable sharing of content between the visitors of your website and their buddies. I like to think of our toolkit as web messenger plus the cool and exciting features of your own website.

mynetx: Your job in the Windows Live Platform team must be a great one, true?

Siebe: Absolutely, I get to work with some very smart people and develop great new products for Windows Live. Being on top of the latest and greatest web stuff is a great way to spend my day It’s a dream come true, haha.

mynetx: . By the way, since when are you in the Live business? Tell me a bit about your history and how you came to that job.

Siebe: Ah, it’s a bit of a long story, but interesting nevertheless. Back in 2003 (I think it was), I started a new bot (or Windows Live Agent, as they are called now) called BOT2K3. For those who don’t remember or don’t know it, it was a bot you could add to your contact list and play games with and so on.

From there I got to know a lot of people from the Windows Live (and MSN) community, and eventually a few people from Microsoft. After a few informal meet-ups with them and a few others from the community, I was invited to submit my resumé to do an internship in Redmond. Eventually I did two internships and ended up here in Canada as a full-time employee.

mynetx: I start understanding your dream came true, lol. When I first got to know you a bit, that was when I read some news on mess.be and noticed that they had been brought to them by “Inky”

Siebe: Yes! During those days I was known under the nickname Inky. I got to know Dwergs and I did some news posts for his popular news website Mess.be.

mynetx: As an MS worker in the Live team, are you running Messenger 24/7? Maybe you’ve got kind of a daily routine with Windows Live.

Siebe: Yeah, my life pretty much revolves around Messenger. I love the new MPOP feature (signing on at work and at home). I talk to my friends and parents back home on Messenger, as well as the rest of my team. Being up in Canada away from my manager and the rest of my team is a bit of a challenge, but using Messenger all day to communicate makes things a lot easier

The first thing I do every day is check any IMs I got overnight, and last thing is usually saying good night to all the rest of my friends across the globe.

mynetx: What is your favorite feature in Messenger?

Siebe: There’s so many to chose from! But if I had to pick, it would be the categories and groups in the contact list and MPOP as a close second.

mynetx: Why?

Siebe: Being able to sort and categories all my contacts is very important to me, even when there is a search feature. I have gotten so many contacts over the years. Being able to sort them out helps me remember where I know them from

As for MPOP, it is very useful to be able to read back things I said during the day when I get home in the evening.. And now I can just leave my computer signed in all day

mynetx: May I ask how many categories you have?

Siebe: I have about 12 categories with about 150 online contacts (plus a similar amount of offline contacts).

mynetx: Hmhmm. Not many for a Softie, hm?

Siebe: Haha, perhaps not. But I think it’s more than enough

mynetx: And how many Live IDs do you run?

Siebe: I currently only actively use two Live IDs — One for Messenger, and one for my XBOX and Zune (which is tied to a single country).

mynetx: Ahh. Looking at the rest of the Windows Live bubble, what do you like most in Windows Live at all?

Siebe: Well, Messenger obviously, haha. But aside from that, I think Writer and Mail are great products. I also use Spaces, but I feel that it could use some work

mynetx: When you’re using Messenger intensively, I’m sure you’ve got a breaking tip for an “aha” effect. Give me a tip you consider precious

Siebe: I really like being able to drag new pictures onto the “me area” to update my display picture. It saves a lot of time rummaging around in the various dialogs.

mynetx: What is the thing you’d love most to be added to Messenger?

Siebe: A few minor things at this point. First would be “inline chat”, quickly sending messages from the contact list itself. Second is better mark-up support (similar to what Messenger Plus! already does) and finally the ability to disable Photo Sharing without regedit hacks

mynetx: Are you using Messenger Plus!, by the way?

Siebe: No, I don’t.

mynetx: Do you think the features you mentioned, will be added in Windows Live Wave 4?

Siebe: I can’t really say. Planning is underway, but I think we’ll all have to be patient and see what cool stuff the client team comes up with this time around

mynetx: Are we going to see any interesting changes or additions to the Web Toolkit? I can’t wait to see…

Siebe: Definitely! We will be releasing an update very shortly with a bunch of fixes and support for IE6. [Editor's Note: This update has been released on 30 April 2009.] In the near future we’re going to add localization, and for our next major release we plan on adding a bunch of new and exciting features!

mynetx: Like?

Siebe: Haha, I don’t want to spoil the surprise

mynetx: Not even a small hint? (A)

Siebe: Okay, but a really small one: Flexibility. Make of it what you want (-;

mynetx: And finally, what’s the Live-related project you’re currently working on?

Siebe: Outside of work you mean, or?

mynetx: Yes!

Siebe: Haha, um, currently I (unfortunately) don’t really have a project going on.. But I hope to come up with some crazy new cool idea soon

mynetx: Okay, be sure to ping me then…

Siebe: Certainly will do.

mynetx: Anyways, thanks that you took these minutes to discuss Windows Live and You with me!

Siebe: No problem, I’m looking forward to the remaining interviews you have in store for us

If you’re already signed in to Messenger on your PC client, don’t worry: The Web Bar supports MPOP (Multiple Points of Presence). That means that your conversations and your status details will roam to all clients that are signed in. Thus, you can start a conversation in Messenger, and continue it in the Web Bar and vice-versa!

Expect a series on the new Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit within the next few weeks – on how to use it, as well as on how to add it to your own website or blog… stay tuned.

Tell me what you think of this new feature.