msn reviews

The good: Windows Live Messenger lets you share files and folders locally with buddies and lets you chat via voice with Yahoo IM users; offers improved security, outbound voice calling, clear video chatting, and integration with other Microsoft tools.

The bad: Windows Live Messenger’s voice calling plans won’t let you receive inbound calls from landlines or cell phones; ads appear within interface.

The bottom line: The live file-sharing capabilities and clear video call quality make Windows Live Messenger stand out.

Microsoft’s updated IM client reflects the company’s rebranding of its many free tools with the Windows Live label. The new MSN Messenger is now called Windows Live Messenger. While largely the same as its predecessor, Windows Live Messenger is unique for allowing you to share folders and files locally with fellow users. It also serves up the usual animated emoticons, winks, and buzzes, along with multiplayer gaming, free PC-to-PC calling, mobile phone messaging, and video chatting. Plus it adds VoIP capabilities that allow you to call telephones around the world for a fee. One major omission, though, is the ability to receive inbound calls from landlines or cell phones, a service that Yahoo Messenger with Voice offers. Overall, we recommend Windows Live Messenger’s video chat over other IM tools’. You can access this app at get.live.com/messenger/overview.

For the first time, you can add contacts outside of the Windows Live or MSN network. Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Live Messenger now allow you to chat via text with buddies who use either tool. We clicked the Add A Contact link within Windows Live Messenger to add a Yahoo-using friend to our contact list in a few quick steps. To do so in the past, you’d have to use a tool such as Trillian.

This 14MB download took just a few minutes in our tests, though we had to proceed with care to prevent Windows Live Messenger from installing unwanted items, such as a desktop shortcut or Rhapsody music software. Once installed, Windows Live Messenger displays a drop-down menu of features along the top, contacts within the center pane, a search box on the bottom, and tabs for eBay, Rhapsody, and other services along the left. Microsoft fans will like the integration with MSN Spaces and the company’s other properties. However, we wish we could hide the animated panel of ads at the bottom.

The chat window is customizable, so you can pick a color scheme or choose from themes and paid avatars, most of which cater to kids and tweens. See more details of the changes in our slide show of Windows Live Messenger beta. If you don’t need the graphics bells and whistles of this tool and those of the similar Yahoo Messenger with Voice or AIM, we recommend the bare-bones Google Talk.

We like Windows Live Messenger’s Sharing Folders feature, which sets it apart from competitors by allowing you to transfer files to and from your buddy’s computer by displaying a mirror of each others’ files on your desktops. With security precautions in mind, Microsoft includes a free file scanner to check Sharing Folders for viruses and other potential threats. You can drag and drop all kinds of files into the chat window, which synchronizes with the mirror window viewed by your buddy, and view a log of activity. Another welcome change is Windows Live Messenger’s ability to store up to 600 contacts, integrated with those from your Windows Live Mail beta account. Windows Live Contacts will notify you when a contact updates his or her details.

With a Webcam installed, you can make video chats with a full 640×480-pixel screen. You can use any Webcam or pick a Microsoft LifeCam with controls tailored to Windows Live Messenger. We found the image quality to be better than that of other IM clients, though we still suffered an image and audio lag of a second or two. With a headset you can talk to Windows Live Messenger buddies via voice for free or pay to call any telephone number through Messenger’s Internet phone calls through Verizon Web Calling. If you plan to rely on Messenger as a Net phone, you can also buy a compatible headset to sign in and out without using your PC. Windows Live Messenger costs 1.9 cents per minute for U.S. calls and up to a dollar to reach numbers abroad. These rates are comparable to Yahoo Messenger’s, but the inability to accept inbound calls limits Windows Live’s usefulness.

Microsoft provides FAQs and a searchable and detailed online knowledge base. You can ask additional questions via a Web-based e-mail form.

Although Yahoo Messenger with Voice and other VoIP tools offer more options for phone service, only Windows Live Messenger sets up a secure environment for sharing and synchronizing all kinds of files. While Messenger may not serve as the ultimate communications hub, it’s a solid, fun multimedia chatting tool and an improvement over the earlier version.

The Good: Clean, well-integrated interface; easy setup and installation; smooth Webcam chat feature.

The Bad: Still not interoperable with other IM clients.

The Bottom Line: MSN Messenger 6.0 is a fun, exciting way to chat; current users should upgrade, stat.

Microsoft currently offers two similar messaging clients: MSN Messenger 6.0, which is aimed at home users, and Windows Messenger 5.0, which is geared toward enterprise users. This distinction, however, is quite confusing. Microsoft claims that the big difference between the two IM clients is that Windows Messenger supports connectivity with Microsoft Exchange IM servers and IM servers that use SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). But while MSN Messenger is, in theory, designed for the general consumer, we found it a more flexible business solution than Windows Messenger. Unfortunately, the video latency is excessive for serious use.

A free download, MSN Messenger offers live videoconferencing, whiteboards, and application sharing in a very intuitive interface. Most important, it works from behind a firewall. Interestingly, Windows Messenger is not as firewall-friendly.

We tested MSN Messenger from behind a corporate firewall and from behind a Linksys BEFW11S4 router, and we were able to connect for video chat through each. To be safe, Microsoft recommends downloading the latest firmware for your NAT routers to avoid any potential connection problems. We did have some problems using MSN Messenger’s application sharing and whiteboard during a videoconference. This was mainly a bandwidth issue; we recommend that you have an extremely fast broadband connection when using all three features at the same time.

The setup is very simple: Just type in your Hotmail or .NET Passport account and you’re automatically registered to use the software. Once you sign in, you can start videoconferencing.

To connect with another user, you click on the appropriate name in the contact list, which gives you the option to start a video conversation. Once video is launched, two video screens are displayed, so you can see yourself and the person you are chatting with. Bear in mind that video communication is limited to one-on-one with MSN Messenger.

Video quality is not good. And in testing, our video feed lagged a simultaneous phone call by about 2 seconds.

MSN Messenger includes some of the best extra utilities we’ve seen. For example, it is the only application in this roundup that supports real application sharing?meaning a user can see and control applications on the remote system. One user can browse Web sites while the remote user watches in real time. The Whiteboard, which is similar to Microsoft’s Paint utility, can be used to share images, sketches, and so on. In addition, Windows XP’s remote assistance is available with a simple button click. This utility lets one user take complete control of another user’s desktop.

Although a variety of platforms support MSN Messenger, some of its features require both users to be running Windows XP. For example, we could not use the application-sharing and remote-control features when one user was on a Windows 2000 system. Likewise, the Start Videoconference option (which initiates audio and video simultaneously) works only when both users are running Windows XP. Otherwise, you must use separate buttons to launch the video and audio feeds individually.

The good: Easy to install and use; packed with features; 24/7 toll-free phone support; blocks pop-up ads; personal firewall and desktop virus scanner included.

The bad: Has performance problems on older PCs; junk filters are only so-so.

The bottom line: MSN 9.0 is still the easiest dial-up ISP to use, and MSN Premium is a smart choice for broadband users who lack firewall, antivirus, and personal finance software.

With its latest release, Microsoft Network splits into three separate offerings. MSN 9.0 is a slightly upgraded version of its $22-a-month dial-up service; MSN Plus and MSN Premium are content add-ons designed to complement any broadband connection. The $6-a-month Plus gives you one e-mail in-box with 25MB of storage and basic MSN features such as a shared calendar, but not much else. The $10-a-month Premium adds another 10 e-mail accounts; virus-scanning and firewall software; and online versions of Microsoft’s Money, Encarta, and Picture-It photo editor. With its easy interface and smart parental controls, MSN 9.0 remains our choice for families who haven’t made the jump to broadband (though we still like EarthLink better for power users). We tested the Premium broadband service and found it to be a good deal if you don’t already have a firewall, antivirus, or personal finance program. Compared with rival AOL, MSN Premium presents better features in a cleaner interface–with fewer overlapping windows and simpler pull-down menus.

Setting up MSN Premium is simple enough: Just pop in the CD, and a wizard locates your existing settings and steps you through the process of installing 180MB worth of software. The whole process took about 20 minutes on our test machine, including a mandatory reboot.

In similar fashion, MSN Toolbar dovetails with Microsoft’s popular online service. You can instantly access your Hotmail account, launch MSN Messenger, or jump to personalized My MSN pages. You also get a search-term highlighter and a pop-up guard. If you use the MSN toolbar, Microsoft may share your search habits with other parts of the company but says it will never share with third parties.

‘TIS EASTER SUNDAY’ and it seems Microsoft is commemorating the resurrection with a little resurrecting of its own, dragging us away from our chocolate egg hunt with snooze, er, news that its talks with Yahoo are back on again.

After restraining himself from any talk of MicroHoo!! for the duration of Lent, Ballmer? purportedly cracked like an Easter egg and met with Yahoo’s new chief executive Carol Bartz face to face last week.

This time, however, it’s not about a sell-out for some 30 pieces of silver, oh no. This time it’s all about “partnership” involving various search and advertising opportunities according to the gospel from “a variety of sources” at Digital Daily.

Sceptics and non believers may have a hard time accepting that such a deal may indeed come to pass, especially since all logical proof points towards Microsoft forging ahead with its Kumo search plan.

In fact, Microsoft seems so hell-bent on creating its own all knowing, all finding search engine, it even converted Qi Lu – Yahoo’s head of engineering for its Search and Advertising Technology Group – to lead the Volish crusade for search and online advertising.

With talks between Ballmer and Bartz said to be “preliminary and wide ranging”, the holy hook-up is said to directly threaten the big G almighty itself (Google for those unversed in INQ blasphemy).

Google reigns over about 60 per cent of the search and online advertising market. Yawho? has a significantly smaller following with just 20 per cent of the market, while Microsoft search has yet to even achieve sect status.

So far, Bartz has managed to avoid crossing Yahoo shareholders by heeding lessons from her predecessor’s painful, drawn-out crucifixion. She has also proved herself most adept at standing firm and praying for miracles from above.

Still, if Bartz manages to nail this deal, Yahoo could soon be looking at the bright side of life once again.

A detailed look at Microsoft’s innovative new operating system, launched today at CES 2009.

Windows 7 Beta will launch to the public tomorrow, via download.microsoft.com, but this newspaper has already obtained a copy and installed it on Dell’s superb Studio Hybrid PC ? that’s exactly the sort of stylish, miniature computer Microsoft wants users to have in their living rooms, at the centre of the much-vaunted ‘digital home’.

Installation

The installation process took over an hour, but once up and running Windows 7’s advantages were impressive. Gathering information from 168,941 user files, settings and ‘programs’ was time consuming for the automated installer, and so was expanding 2340mb worth of files. Google’s new Chrome browser installs in seconds, and while that is not an operating system, Microsoft will be aware that everybody’s impatient for their computers to be faster in all respects. However, at least the process was clearly saying what it was doing, and made it obvious that it hadn’t in fact crashed midway through.

Homegroups and touchscreens

Essentially, this is the operating system Vista should have been ? it starts up relatively quickly, drivers already exist to make peripherals such as scanners and printers work with it, and it does clever things that XP, the version of Windows most people still use, just doesn’t.

The two facets that are at the heart of that are based around the ‘Homegroup’, and new ways of inputting and viewing information. The Homegroup means that you can group together a number of things, from MP3 players to other computers, and so as soon as you join a network, you can instantly see everything you’ve seen before. Music, films and files really are available immediately. This idea is certainly not new, but the breakthrough comes in simplifying the sharing process to accommodate the countless videos, digital pictures and albums that people have taken using digital technology. Windows Media Player, too, now supports far more file formats.

The new ways of dealing with information, meanwhile, mean that touchscreens are much better supported – in the future they will need to be – and that forthcoming applications based around combining television and the internet will slot in neatly, too. The same integration applies to online services such as social networking site Facebook, and, for instance, Windows Live with its shared picture galleries.

The icons here are bigger, too, but they don’t look patronising. The idea is that fat fingers should be as useful as the tiny pointer of a mouse. Shaking individual windows can be used to activate certain features, as well, which could be a natural move with a finger on a touchscreen, but not with the mouse.

Vista’s desktop, improved

On many machines, Vista’s desktop quickly seemed to run slowly. Software updates fixed some issues, but at least three computers I’ve used didn’t seem to respond very effectively. Vista separates its gadgets out from the bar that previously occupied the right-hand side of the screen, and consequently feels considerably more friendly. The difference isn’t huge, aesthetically, but functionally it’s significant.

From netbooks to desktops

Another crucial improvement for Windows 7 over Windows Vista is that 7 will run on a range of machines, from low-specification netbooks to high-powered desktops. On our mid-range Studio Hybrid, 7 was certainly more impressive than Vista, although there were the bugs that are acceptable in a test beta version, especially to do with the anti-virus programmes that are currently still very specific to Vista.

Micorosoft say that the operating system will be happy on, for instance, an Asus EeePC. Given that the EeePC sometimes struggles to run its cut-down version of Linux, that’s quite some claim, and I’d be eager to see how true it really is.

Intelligent power management

There are substantial improvements in power management, too, with ports being turned off when they’re not in use, and so this is an operating system that does what it should: unlike Vista, it shuts up, and keeps things going while you, the user, can get on with whatever it is you need to be doing. Batteries will live longer, but the programme learns from your behaviour too. If the display is set to dim after 30 seconds and you move the mouse immediately it does, then you’ll get significantly longer before the computer dims its display again. So there’s time, say, to read something quite lengthy on screen without constant irritation.

But should you really go and download a beta?

Senior people at Microsoft say they’ve been using the current build of Windows 7 on their main machines for a few days now and that there have been no problems. Indeed, it is certainly true that the developer community is making surprisingly positive noises about Windows 7, especially when compared to Vista. So people will be taking the plunge in droves, right?

Geeks will, indeed. But does Windows 7 do anything you need so much it’s worth the risk? The answer is almost certainly no.

It offers impressive connectivity, it looks slick to the (Apple?) core, but, for instance, persuading it to ignore warnings about McAfee’s Security Centre being incompatible with this new version of Windows was difficult and annoying. For some unknown reason, too, web access sometimes just ground to a halt and crashed Internet Explorer. No computer or wifi network is perfect, but a consumer should be able to know that such problems are not in their browser, and with a beta you simply don’t have that kind of certainty.

Conclusions

Microsoft has learnt a lot from Vista. The PR for Windows 7 is already better, and the company, more than in the past, is keen to constantly remind users that Friday’s release is only of a test version. It helps, of course, that in truth Vista is now the operating system it should have been when it launched. People aren’t desperate for an upgrade, as they were in the last days of XP.

What Microsoft has realised primarily, though, is that Windows 7 needs to make everything easier ? playing music, joining networks, sharing photos should all feel simpler than they do currently. The good news is that with this beta they already do; if Microsoft can really deliver on that vision in the full release, then Windows 7 should be a formidable programme indeed.