Windows Messenger 4.7 to 5

[Yogi Watcher]

I have Windows messenger (not MSN messenger) V 4.7
(4.7.2009) and want to upgrade to Windows Messenger
(again not MSN Messenger) V 5.x and have one question:

V5 installation is going to upgrade V4.7 or am I going to
end up with V4.7 and V5 both running on my laptop?

Thanks
Yogi Watcher

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Andrew,

Windows Messenger 5 was released last Friday:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/messenger/
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com

 

[Yogi Watcher]

The only reason I wanted to go to Windows Messenger 5, is
I want "Instant Messaging (IM) Clients for Exchange 2000
Instant Messaging Service". From the microsoft
website "http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2000/
IMclient.asp", it appears that you have only option of
5.0 with XP and 4.6 with NT, etc.

I have XP and WM version 4.7, I could not find 4.7
exchange client for XP. Is there any out?

 

[Andrew McDonald]

Thanks Jonathan. Bit of a low-key launch, isn't it? microsoft.com/windowsxp/windowsmessenger/ is
still entirely based around 4.7, and looking in the Download Center for WM downloads only finds 4.7
and a couple of SDKs. It's not on Windows Update and Messenger itself hasn't alerted me to any new
release. In addition there was that email sent out the other day (my sister got 10-15 copies!)
telling everyone to upgrade for security reasons, but that only pointed at 4.7 as well! Usually MS
pulls out all the stops when a new version of a product is released, but this is more of a whimper?

Doesn't seem to be much new in it though, hardly worth a major version number incremement. I notice
it works on Win 2000 now though?

Andrew

 

[Andrew McDonald]

And what happened to the file size? 8 MB?!

Andrew

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Hi Andrew,

The filesize is primarily because it uses the Windows Installer now.

There are plenty of links that are still pointing to 4.7, and actually with Windows
Messenger, they've never "taken out the stops", nor have the updates ever immediately
appeared on Windows Update.

It does work on Windows 2000, primarily because it is now *the client* that supports Exchange
Instant Messaging, SIP-based Communications Services (the new Office Live Communications
Server). There are some other nice additions, like UPnP enabled file transfer, TabletPC
digital ink support, etc. but nothing terribly drastic.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com

 

[Andrew McDonald]

The filesize is primarily because it uses the Windows Installer now.

Doesn't that strike you as a little... peculiar? On dial-up the difference is very important,
you go from a 2-minute download to a 16-minute one, with barely any extra functionality! How can
that be? Windows Installer doesn't inherently create huge archives does it? I mean that's got to be
bigger than the program itself uncompressed!

Andrew

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Hi Andrew,

Although Windows XP ships with Windows Installer 2.0, Windows 2000 does not, and since the
installation has to support both Windows XP and Windows 2000, the Windows Installer
installation (installer for the installer) has to come with the Windows Messenger setup. The
Windows 2000 version also requires a number of DLLs that XP users don't, which increases the
size as well.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com

 

[Andrew McDonald]

I see. Can I suggest the team uses a web installer instead then, which would detect the operating
system and only download the necessary files? After all the page does still tell you to choose Open
instead of Save. It really would be helpful for those of us on dial-up

Andrew

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Hi Andrew,

As someone who was on dial-up for the past two weekends, I'll second this as well.

If I get any free time (yeah right) in the next little while, I may make an "unofficial"
XP-only Windows Messenger 5 install to download from my own personal site.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com