WLM 9

Windows Live Messenger 9



I think it looks nicer than WLM 8.5. There are some new features here and there, like favorite contacts and groups. There's also more flexibility in customizing the look and feel of it, like adjusting the layout, setting your sound options for different alerts and having dynamic/animated display pictures [its free now, no payments =)]. Statuses are now color coded, green for online/available, red : busy, orange : away. In wlm 8.5 there was the color changer, they added on to it in 9, now they have 'scenes' to choose from which lets you further customize the way your messenger looks.

Overall, no drastic changes but definite improvements. The MOST significant improvement imo is the installer, the old windows live installer was rather bad. The new installer provides a faster install and more details on the progress so that you know your installation is still running [unlike the old one where it used to get stuck at 99% for pretty long].

I'd like to recommend a patch for messenger:
Apatch
It gives many options to further customize the look and function of your messenger. The newest version compatible with wlm9 only has a few options at this point, but it's well worth it because of the option to remove the ads in the messenger windows [which I really dislike]. Other options to note are disable nudge shake and disable nudge delay, fun to have if you like annoying people ^^. It also has the option to enable polygamy [you can open more than one messenger client at the same time which allows you to sign in to more than one messenger account simultaneously].