Free Download: Messenger Plus! Live 4.80.356 (4.80 MB)

For those of you interested, here are the most important parts of the changelog:

• This version is entirely compatible with the final version of Windows Live Messenger 2009 (build 1202). Yes, that includes chat logging, emotion sounds, skins, scripts and so on .
• The new UIB encoded version of the windows’ styles and definitions is completely supported by Messenger Plus!.
• Compatibility with all previous beta versions of Windows Live Messenger 9/14/2009 has been removed (more than a year of betas for this one!).
• Messenger Plus! now displays many of its windows using the specific color selected for each contact. Display pictures are also displayed in contact related popup notifications (can be turned off in the preferences).
• The Contact Information window now displays an animation for animated display pictures.
• When chatting in a group in Messenger 2009, whenever possible, Messenger Plus! creates a single chat log file associated to the group.
• Windows 7 is now properly reported by (!VER). Messenger Plus! is currently reported to work on this OS.
• A couple of things have been improved internally to ensure the reliability of the sound modules in Messenger Plus! (especially when using emotion sounds).

Thoughts on Messenger Plus! Live 5.0

• What are features you would like to see in Messenger?
• What have you been missing all the time, even with Messenger Plus?

Be creative and tell your ideas. Whatever you have in mind – post a comment and let us know.

• Removing sign-in window links
• Removing advertisements in chat window and contact list
• Removing e-mail- and other buttons in the contact list toolbar
• Removing the yellow information bar in both contact list and chat windows (or only one of them, at your choice)
• Moving the word wheel (contact search + buttons on the right) to the bottom of the contact list, or hiding it completely
• Hide any of the buttons Messenger Plus! adds to the chat windows

Free Download: Plus!Patch 2.0.1 Beta (754 kB)

And this is what a Messenger chat window looks like with all available options applied:

Maybe you’re one of the people who can’t live without music. And maybe you know Deezer, where you can listen to music for free, streamed. How can you show what is currently playing there, in your Current Media info in Windows Live Messenger? To set it up, follow this how-to.

1. Enable “What I’m listening to” in Messenger.
   1. Open the contact list.
   2. Click the small arrow next to your personal status message.
   3. Check the item “Show what I’m listening to”, if it is unchecked.
2. Install the add-on “DeezerMSN” for Mozilla Firefox.
3. Restart Firefox, and go to Tools > Add-ons.
4. Choose “DeezerMSN” in the list, and click “Options” to set up what should be shown as your media info.
5. Go to Deezer, and start playing any song you like. Then watch the Music info appear in your Messenger!

PS: If you are wondering why the Messenger notification looks a bit different… consider browsing my post about the Sopair skin for WLM 2009 Beta.

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!

Contact List

• In the header area of your contact list, on the left side of the e-mail icon, but on the right side of a (mostly hidden) offline message icon, you find a big Plus! icon. It opens the same menu that was opened by the smaller Plus! icon in former versions of Messenger.
• Under it, next to the Add contact dropdown, there is the scripts button, opening the scripts menu (if you have any scripts installed).

Chat Window

Here we find the Messenger Plus! button moved to the top toolbar (where it gets hidden along with the whole toolbar, when you hide it), and the usual rest of the buttons in the lower formatting toolbar.

You can’t wait for this version of Plus!, being compatible with the newest Messenger beta? Trust me, it will get released as a public beta very soon…