MessengerSays Blog is no longer active

Hi everyone,

Did you notice? We haven’t posted anything new here for awhile. We’ve officially stopped maintaining this blog.

If you need technical help with anything from Windows Live, try the Windows Live Solution Center.

To get the inside story from the people who build Windows Live, check out the Inside Windows Live blog, where Windows Live engineers and executives blog about all the Windows Live services, how they’re built, and how we decide what to add or improve as we build the latest new features.

There is a great blog post there about the upcoming version of Messenger (link).

For tips and updates about cool things you can do with Windows Live, check out the Hotmail and Messenger pages on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/windowslive. Thanks for all your support and see you on the new Inside Windows Live blog!

The Windows Live team

Health Tech Today show premiere, powered by Windows Live Messenger

Today marks the premiere of a new program named Health Tech Today, which features informative interviews with some of the world’s top health leaders; compelling health-related personal stories; and the latest new technology and IT innovations.  The show is hosted by Dr. Bill Crounse and the premiere episode features an interview with eHealth adovcate, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Here is the complete list of guests from the first episode.

  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu – eHealth & human rights advocate, South Africa
  • Dr. Kim Pittenger – MD, Medical Director, Virginia Mason, Kirkland, WA
  • Don Detmer – MD, MA, Professor of Medical Education, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
  • Andrew Cull – CEO, Remote Medical International
  • Cornelia Ruland – PhD, Center for Shared Decision Making & Nursing Research, Oslo, Norway
  • Chris Otto – CEO & Founder, Halo Monitoring


So what does this have to do with Messenger and why are we writing about it on the MessengerSays blog?

Besides being a great show on a topic that many of us feel passionate about, we’re happy to say that Windows Live Messenger was used to conduct all of the remote video interviews.  A few weeks prior to the recording of the first episode we were approached by the producers asking if we thought the Messenger video call functionality would work for the live interviews they wanted to conduct with guests from all around the world.  We said ‘of course’ and after a quick discussion it was clear that Messenger would indeed meet all their needs.

The producers explained to us that they would typically have to transport the guests to a studio and pay a hefty fee to setup a live satellite-link.  They were very excited at how simple it was to setup a video call and not only did they save money (free!), but the guests didn’t even have to leave their homes to do the interviews.

This was a great win-win situation for everyone (except maybe the satellite-link owners) and the team is looking forward to hearing about more instances where our technology was used to bring things like this together.

Check out the episode for yourself at http://www.microsoft.com/industry/healthcare/healthtechtoday 

Try a video call yourself!

Thanks,
Tolga & Lonn
Windows Live Messenger Team

Upgrade from Windows Live Messenger 8.5

In September, we began asking users on 8.1 clients to upgrade to the latest version of messenger to ensure that they had the most up to-date and secure release.  (see post)

Starting today, users on version 8.5 will also be required to upgrade before they can sign-in to the service.  Starting on the November 9th, users on Messenger 2009 (version 14) will need to upgrade their clients too.  Users who have already installed the latest version, which was released Aug 18th 2009 (Build: 14.0.8089.726),  will not be required to upgrade.

If you are using Messenger 2009 and are curious what version you have, you can go to the Help –> About Menu.

If you have any issues or questions during the upgrade process, here are the places you can go to get some answers.

Troubleshooting Login Issues

 This post from the support team provides some guidance into how to determine what error you are getting and steps to resolve many of these.

Online Help

 You can also try the online help pages.  On the left hand side, you can select ‘Table of Contents’ (near the bottom) and get information on troubleshooting and error codes.

Contact the Support Team

 If you have already tried the going through the online help suggestions and still having difficulties then you should consider contacting the Messenger support team and providing them with more information about the problems that you are encountering.

 

Note: Users on Windows XP will need to ensure that they have installed Service Pack 2 (SP2) or higher, otherwise the upgrade will not work.  Instructions to install the latest Service Pack (SP3) can be found here.  Additionally, here is more information about the system requirements.

Thanks for everyone’s continued support.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Messenger Team

Upgrade from Windows Live Messenger version 8.1

Over the past few weeks we have been asking customers using previous versions of Windows Live Messenger to upgrade to the latest version in order to ensure they had the most up-to-date and secure release.  If you’d like to learn more about this upgrade and why we’re doing this, please see the previous blog post, Upgrade Windows Live Messenger.

Starting today, if you are using version 8.1, you will be required to upgrade before you will be able to sign-in.  After upgrading you will be able to sign-in and if you’re interested in learning more about the new release, please visit the Windows Live Messenger information page.

We’ve seen comments from a few users stating that they have had some trouble signing-in after the upgrade and wanted to provide a few resources.  The following links can help you in case you’re having an issue.

Troubleshooting Login Issues

 This post from the support team provides some guidance into how to determine what error you are getting and steps to resolve many of these.

Online Help

 You can also try the online help pages.  On the left hand side, you can select ‘Table of Contents’ (near the bottom) and get information on troubleshooting and error codes.

Contact the Support Team

 If you have already tried the going through the online help suggestions and still having difficulties then you should consider contacting the Messenger support team and providing them with more information about the problems that you are encountering.

 

Update: Users on Windows XP will need to ensure that they have installed Service Pack 2 (SP2) or higher, otherwise the upgrade will not work.  Instructions to install the latest Service Pack (SP3) can be found here.  Additionally, here is more information about the system requirements.

Thanks,
The Windows Live Messenger Team

Notice: Trouble sending messages.

We are currently experiencing technical issues that may cause you to have trouble sending IMs.  We are working quickly to fix this issue and apologize for the inconvenience.

-The Windows Live Messenger Team

Update: 3:10pm PST

We’ve fixed the issue and things are returning back to normal.  Thanks for your patience.