Download and Use the old Windows Live Messenger 2009

Well Forgive me, I’m not normally one to rant(Ed. okay that may be a lie).But this time it’s almost serious!

Since the dawn of the blue screen, Microsoft have been royally screwing things up for the likes of you, me and everybody else.

Now they have unleashed their greatest stagnation upon the masses; Windows Live Messenger 2011 (Wave 4) . Not only has it got all the gloss of a polished turd, its got more bugs than a fisherman’s hut.  its also got a brand new terrible interface combined with the removal of some very useful features that the previous versions had.

Apart from giving me a case of the grumps..lets see what they’ve given us…

• Tabbed conversations… We already had this with msn plus
• A redesign of how the emoticons look how useful.
• The ability to ignore Bing search not only from your browser, but now from within msn as well!
• Connections to various social networks.. Okay that could be useful, but its handled in a most cumbersome way.
• Integration with Facebook chat…Really ? why ?
• OOOOH BADGES …erm no

Though on the flip side of the coin, here are some of the more useful things they have removed:

• One way web cam support, you can no longer Send my web cam or View this contacts web cam instead you are forced to do some kind of Skype-esq video call which resembles half the quality of Skype but double the annoyance.
• The abolition of contact Import/Exports.. This one really is beyond me, Why do this? okay sure i never used it.. but i could have?
• Display names are now royally screwed up.
• Oh yes, sorry folks, if your using anything other than Vista/Windows 7 your no longer supported.

Now you all may think I’m just a mad man ranting about a situation with no solution, a wolf crying in the wilderness? Well not exactly; There are alternatives.

For years aMSN has been developing, it is an open source alternative to the run of the mill, its free, very easy to use and works on most major platforms(Windows,MacOs,Linux etc..).

I’ve used that for awhile, but when I’m on a windows machine I still prefer the style n feel of the older msn clients…that’s why i have provided this Earlier version of Windows Live 2009.

Just un-install the latest one, via the program / features part of your control panel.

Another useful tool I use to wallow away the days is MSN plus, with polygamy( in the non marital sense) and various other tools it makes the MSN experience a bit more bearable.

A Small Update 24th Feburary 2011

Some of you may now be getting:

A newer version is available. You must install the newer version in order to continue. Would you like to do this now ?

Microsoft now deem it a requirement for you to update again to a later version, once again removing features. I am including a small replacement for the msnmsg.exe file, simply copy it into your windows live messenger directory (most likely: C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger)

You will still need to install the version of Windows live messenger 2009 above.

The msnmsgr patch can be found here. Just simply replace that msnmsg.exe with the one in your Windows Live Messenger directory and all should work fine!

Happy hunting.