MSN Messenger 7.5
MSN Messenger BETA has been released to selected BETA-testers, including
KebecoiS and sk8michael who were so kind to provide us with the first-ever
screenshots of MSN Messenger 7.5 BETA. The bug/feature/leak-hunting season has
opened, y'all!
The sign in screen has been redesigned. If you tick the Remember Me option, it
will show your MSN Display Picture and automatically fill in your e-mail
address. There are separate options for saving your password as well, or sign in
instanteneously altogether.
Not much changes in the main window: the Add a Contact has been replaced at the
top of the Contact List (rendering the bottom "I want to" actions pane obsolete)
and the My Space button is now titled My MSN Space.
Arriving in the conversation window, the Webcam and Audio buttons are now
renamed to Video & Voice and the Video button also has a new symbol. A
completely new feature we announced before are the Voice Clips, which enable you
to send voice messages (or whatever you sample, really) by holding the button
(or hold F2) and recording through your microphone. Yelling your contact's name
sounds like a good alternative to the Nudge button. Obviously,
 this feature only
works if both contacts own MSN Messenger 7.5. UPDATE: Voice clips can last up to
15 seconds, but their quality can be rather mediocre depending on the input.
Luckily, they do not automatically playback when received and you need to press
the Play button first.
 Bloat-alert: just like MSN Display Pictures, conversation window backgrounds can
now be dynamic. While I have yet to see it in action, I can imagine many an
epilepsy seizure caused by these Dynamic Backgrounds. I don't think anyone was
waiting for this feature, but according to KebecoiS: "the animation is more
pleasant [than Winks], the text color matches it so you can still see it clearly
and it's not just annoying". Two Dynamic Backgrounds from Blue Mountain are
included in this BETA. One has a fish swimming, the other shows world clocks
(though according to Mini-Me the times shown on the clocks are not accurate,
screenshot by sinuz). UPDATE: Want to see them in action? Here's a a video
preview of Dynamic Backgrounds. As reported by SAM and balupton, free animated
backgrounds can be downloaded here.
Digging further, the Connection TroubleShooter is said to be more comprehensive.
In the Security options you can now chose to disable hyperlinks in conversations
(a protection against IM worms), disable Voice Clips and allow MSN Messenger to
fire up a conversation window if you click a link in your web browser (the
conversation link feature has likely been reinstated for use on MSN Spaces and
Hotmail Kahuna). And in the Alerts and Sounds options, you can define a sound to
be played when invited to an audio conversation. UPDATE: By default, it's two
times a classic phone ring.
Finally, some bad news for the pre-XP generation. According to XxRebelSeanxX on
the forum, the MSN Messenger 7.5 setup only supports Windows XP. There's a small
chance that this issue is limited to the BETA.
UPDATE: The MSN Messenger 7.5 BETA-period will take place approximately six
weeks during July and August. That's a final release in September, then?
UPDATE 2: Several screenshots and facts have been added. Check the above post
for the word UPDATE. Keep checking the news as we continuously update.
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