Having just upgraded MSN 7 Beta to v7.0.0777 I have to say, whilst some annoyances from the previous version have been 'fixed' — eg. the 'Allow contacts to nudge me' option, which conversely, when disabled, actually displayed incoming nudges anyway but blocked all *outgoing* nudges entirely — I've been disappointed by several things.
Firstly, the addition of a 'Search' button alongside 'Send' in the conversation window. By shoving an MSN Search outlet into a chat window, Microsoft hope to force people to use MSN Search over Google. All it does is serve to deeply annoy. If we want to use MSN Search, we will go to http://search.msn.com in Firefox (:-P). If we wish to talk to our friends we will launch Messenger — unless they're on IRC of course.
Now, I enjoy using Messenger. A lot of people I know are on it, and for its bloatedness, it's occasionally fun to use a graphically almost-appealing piece of software. The features such as 'Display Name' and Display Pictures are used by the people I know, so these are good things. Unfortunately, recent versions of Messenger have insisted on displaying advertisements to download 'Emoticon and Theme Packs', advertisements which open a mini Internet Explorer window (IE being as far from my default browser as possible) and offering such items for £1.50 or more. Sparkly new 'Dynamic Display Pictures' are advertised well across the product, but it's only when you follow the rainbow that you realise they'll cost you an arm and a leg to use. If these purchase opportunities were made available for those who wanted them, I wouldn't mind so much. But a permanent hyperlink on the bottom of every conversation window constantly reminds me how much I hate big corporations trying to extort every last bit of cash from young, innocent chatters.
Along the same lines, Microsoft has finally realised that people tend to put messages and quotes, humourous or otherwise, in their Display Names. So, in their infinite wisdom, they created a new field for 'Personal Message', leaving 'Name' for the user's actual name. This seems logical, at least until you find that Personal Messages are only displayed in the main MSN window, which many people (myself included) keep minimized or hidden in the system tray to avoid all the horrendous clutter. Consequently, the Message is never shown in conversation windows and there is no quick way to check one's own Message. Now, I've long been disappointed at the lack of a quick menu option in conversation windows to change one's own Display Name, but this has just meant more windows have to be open to access chat-related features, whilst advertising, sponsored gaming activities and incessant pleas to visit MSN's various web-based services (all of which link directly to iexplore.exe) take over the entire application, window by window.
Thank god for MSN Plus!, Patchou's add-on helper application, which collates useful features such as plain text logging (XML is so bloated), Desktop Contacts and real sound notifications (for those who want them) and places them accessibly in the conversation windows. I just hope the Plus! features don't get lost under all the Microsoft garbage that's turning MSN Messenger into MSN Central.
Sidenote: There's a handy patching program out there, known as "MSNMSGR Ghost" from Volv, which can remove most of the annoyances described above. I wholly recommend trying it — it has a rollback facility in case something goes wrong with the patch process or you decide you rather like Microsoft owning your existence.
