Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger (WLM, known in the past under the name of MSN Messenger ) is a Logiciel customer owner related to the service owner of Instant messaging (usable free) for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Mobile and produced by Microsoft. It offers the services of VoIP and Visioconférence as from its version 8.0.

Windows Live, will be seen adding many functions. For example, the possibility of calling its correspondent directly even if it is not on line, a system of divided file (protected by an antivirus specific to Windows Live Messenger if the computer is deprived by it) which could be read by the contacts of your list, the VoIP - contraction of Voice over IP, i.e. the possibility of making pass from the voice on Internet - will make its appearance, research tools starting from its contact list will be also of the part. Other functions are seen being improved, as the maximum number of contacts which extends now to 600, the tool for videoconference which is more powerful or the possibility of sorting its contacts by statutes, groups or date of modification of personal space. -->

Use

To use Windows Live Messenger, it is obligatory to create an account on Windows Live ID (old “  Passport  ”) with any address valid e-mail. That Ci should not inevitably be an address Hotmail/Windows Live Hotmail, the service of email of Microsoft.

The address of email is the identifier of the users on this mail system. Windows Live ID is the system of Microsoft identification used on the whole of the sites of this last: Microsoft, MSN, Live.com and all the services Windows Live.

Note: the opening of an account of email on Hotmail opens automatically an account Windows Live ID, but any other email address can be associated also there. It is enough for you to record it on the gate Windows Live ID.

Functionalities

MSN Messenger

  • Management of the statute among seven proposed by defect (On line, Occupied (E), Of return in one minute, Absent (E), Left (E) to eat, On the telephone, Off line), one can choose his front statute as after connection and change constantly;
  • Attribution of a pseudonym: it is possible also to add a personal, visible message in the list of your contacts on the right of its pseudonym, also makes it possible to post the music file played in Windows Media Player, ITunes, Winamp, MusikCube, Media Player Classic and VLC media player (the latter thanks to a Plug-in);
  • Organization of the contacts: posting of the contacts by MSN Messenger address or pseudonym, posting of the misadventures, sorting by group or by connected/off-line and classification in personal groups;
  • Drawing in a conversation;
  • Also: seek common with its contact, to have a calling card, to create a conversation with several, to safeguard its discussions, to safeguard its contact list, etc

Interactions multi-media are also possible:

  • audio/video Conversation: audio conversation (thanks to a Microphonous and enclosures or a microphone-helmet) and video (thanks to a Webcam);
  • Creation of a diaporama to divide its photographs;
  • shared Listening to music (available in certain countries only);
  • Sending and reception of files;
  • Division of calendar accompanied by events with a contact;
  • Mini plays: Diamonds, Bomb disposal expert, Ladies, Recluse, Crab-louse, Poker and Fourthly.

There exist extension S for MSN Messenger which add many functionalities to him, one of most famous being Messenger Plus.

Microsoft Messenger for Mac OS

Microsoft also carried out a version for Mac OS of its customer of transport. The last version is Microsoft Messenger 6.0.3 and functions only on Mac OS X.

It integrates from now on the personal messages with possibility of posting the title played in ITunes, the emoticon S personalized but without management of the Webcam, the audio conversations, the plays or the personalized backgrounds.

It should be noted that Microsoft announced (without giving exact date) that version 7 for Mac OS X was under development and that it would take in particular charges the audio and video conversations with them.

Windows Live Messenger

In addition to all that, MSN Messenger is seen allotting a new name (which fits directly in the line of the services “Live” of Microsoft) and a new interface, younger and more accessible.

This version presents improvements of accessibility facilitating the use by the handicapped people (partially-sighted persons mainly).

In addition to the new above mentioned options, one can see a first impression of what will be present in this new grinding:

  • Left “contacts”:

    • the maximum number of contacts per address passed from 300 to 600
    • One can re-elect his contacts as it is wished
    • It is possible to fill a card with profile of each contact (name, first name, address, n° of telephone, Web site, birth date, etc)
    • the window of invitation of a contact was completely re-examined
    • Possibilité automatically of updating the personal informations of our contacts thanks to Windows Live Contacts
    • Disponibilité of research tools for the contact list
    • very fast Connection
    • the contacts are at present stored on hard drive and on the Microsoft waiters to allow, in the event of problems on the Microsoft waiters, of being able all the same to use Windows Live Messenger.
  • Left “discussion”:
    • One can send messages to our contacts out-line, which they will receive as of their connection.
    • One can speak with our contacts even if one is in statute “to appear off line”
    • One can add time markers in front of the messages
    • One can gather the messages of a contact in the same paragraph, until the next intervention about a following contact
    • the compatibility of the instant messagings between Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger

  • Appearance:

    • the color of the windows is personnalisable according to each contact among a broad choice of colors
    • Arrière-plan animated
    • Bouton of rapid access to the bottom of the conversation
    • Nouvelles icons for the statutes of the contacts
    • Possibilité of decontaminating the miters in the principal window
    • the sounds can be replaced manually starting from the options
    • automatic Choix of the color of the window according to the bottom of selected screen

  • File-sharing:

    • Function of assistance improved
    • Creation of a space shared between us and our contacts: each of the two parts will be able to modify the document and it will be updated in real-time at each one (the Filesystem of the hard drive must be NTFS)
    • Pas of limit of size

  • VoIP :

    • Module of VoIP with low costs
    • Partnership with Orange

  • Videoconference:

    • Possibility of seeing the last vidéos (still a little fuzzy on this subject)
    • the advertizings of the principal window could be replaced by vidéos lodged on Msn Vidéo, with the choice of the user.

  • the service I' M (which one can translate by " I suis") launched by Microsoft allows to transfer the advertizing benefit with an association chosen by the user of Windows Live Messenger. To activate I' M, it is simply enough to enter a code corresponding to the association which the user would wish to support. This code makes post in pseudo the small logo I' M which shows that the user supports an association.
Associations which can be constant are as follows, preceded by their code:
    • *unicef : to help UNICEF
    • *naf: to help research against the AIDS
    • *help: to fight against the Climate warming
    • *red+u: to help the the American Red Cross
    • *9mil: to help the children Taken refuge S

This service is not possible that starting from version 8.1 of Windows Live Messenger.

Compatible software

Certain software was created in order to:
  • to allow to converse with users of the network of MSN Messenger without being obligé :
    • to use the software customer owner officiel  ;
    • to use the operating system Windows   ;
  • to use other networks of transport (either into simultaneous or independently)   ;
  • to have additional options.

Among those, one finds:

It is also possible to be connected to the MSN Messenger network via the site of MSN Web Messenger. This site does not use a Applet Java and does not require that the MSN Messenger customer is installed. It is unfortunately compatible only with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or superior, Netscape 7.1 or superior or the continuation Mozilla 1.6 or superior, under Microsoft Windows. The navigator Mozilla Firefox being based in the beginning on branch 1.7 (more precisely on version 1.7.13) of the continuation Mozilla, it is dealt with almost officially.

eBuddy and meebo propose a multiprotocol mail service via a site. No installation is thus necessary.

Windows Messenger, is a version reduced of MSN Messenger present on the operating system Windows XP. It is component integrated of Windows XP which makes it possible to launch since Messenger: remote Assistance, the Division of Application and the White Table. It is compatible with MSN Messenger and made it possible to impose this one. Windows Messenger is not developed any more by Microsoft. The stable last version is the 5.1.0701.

It is also possible to be connected to the MSN Messenger network with the users of the open standard of instant messaging Jabber via a footbridge (transport).

History

It is into 1999 that Microsoft and Yahoo! imitated the small Israeli firm Mirabilis, author of the first modern application of instant messaging general public ICQ, by introducing MSN Messenger and Yahoo! respectively Messenger.

Inter alia

Progressively of the versions beta, Windows Live Messenger, which was very greedy in memory (the first bêtas using approximately 60 Mo), was the subject of notable improvements in the field. For example, the build 369 did not take any more that 20 Mo of random access memory, and beta 566 Frenchwoman uses from now on only 14Mo of it approximately. It is an example of Optimization of code.

One tended to call” quite simply ““MSN Messenger MSN”, It would seem that “Windows Live Messenger” becomes “WLM”.

The invitations to take part in the test of Windows Live Messenger were launched well before the official bêtas appear.

The final version of Windows Live Messenger left the July 17th 2007: Msn Messenger 8.5 then Windows Live Messenger toolbar.

Protocol owner and closed

MSN Messenger uses the protocol owner Microsoft Notification Protocol (MSNP) over TCP (and optionnellement over HTTP to be able to use the proxys) to be connected to service .NET Messenger - a service offered on port 1863 of messenger.hotmail.com.

Its current version is the 15 (MSNP15), it is used by Windows Live Messenger 8.1 and other third customers.

The protocol was not always completely secret: Microsoft revealed version 2 (MSNP2), from now on obsolete, with the developers in 1999, but forever revealed versions 8 and more recent.

Waiters .NET Messenger Service accept currently only the protocols of versions 8 and later, with the result that the syntax of the new orders of versions 8 and more recent is only known by using breathers such as Wireshark (legal study at ends of interworking).

Filtering and Safety

The communication protocol of MSN Messenger uses a centralized architecture. All the messages of a shipper pass by the waiters of Microsoft before being conveyed with the recipient.

That allows, and grace in particular to the security systems which were set up in the most recent versions of Windows Live Messenger (versions 8), to filter the contents transferred via these waiters. Thus we can notice the blocking of the transfers when the extensions of the files are the following ones (nonexhaustive list and to check):

ade, adp, app, asp, low, beat, cer, chm, cmd, COM, cpl, crt, HSC, exe, fxp, hlp, hta, inf, ins, ISP, its, js, jse, ksh, lnk, mad, maf, mag, mam, maq, mar, farmhouse, chechmate, mau, mav, maw, mda, mdb, mde, mdt, mdw, mdz, msc, msi, msp, mst

It is nevertheless possible thanks to the possible appearance in certain cases of a dialog box informing of the incurred dangers, to authorize all the same, manually, the sending of the files of these types.

In addition, such a system does not exclude technically the possibility of recording and shaping from the discussions of the users. The waiters being located at the United States, the laws data processing and freedom Frenchwomen do not apply. A number of companies, concerned their commercial secrets, thus prefer an open protocol there (e.g.: Jabber and XMPP) and chooses or installs a waiter on the territory of their choice. For as much, no case of businesses of this forever declared type.

Moreover, it is perfectly possible to filter the messages. Previously, the message containing certain keywords were not transmitted to their recipient, without their shipper being informed by it. Currently, bearing URL addresses the extension .info or the URL of the http://./staff.php type sent via protocol WLM are blocked without the transmitter nor the recipient not being informed. Microsoft judges that as an additional safety fence to the reason that sites carrying this extension were recognized like dangerous. Protection offered is nevertheless quite relative, being easily avoidable thanks to services of redirection of URL, and causes many false-positives, as the many complaints testify some to users on this subject.

Censure

The communication protocol of MSN Messenger uses a centralized architecture. All the messages of a shipper pass by the waiters of Microsoft before being conveyed with the recipient.

Thus, it was fortuitously discovered that the MSN Messenger waiters censured certain messages sent by the users while being based on a list of words. This list is maintained deprived by Microsoft.

From the exit of Windows Live Messenger 2008, this censure does not apply any more to the messages sent since the messaging software of Microsoft. Nevertheless, it is still active and filters all the messages sent since MSN Messenger customers not developed by Microsoft, of which the free customers , but also the robots transmitting virus via network MSN.

The list of the filtered words was not published by Microsoft: the detection of a censured expression thus holds of the mere chance, and lists it censured words found by the users grows regularly. In here are of the examples, nonexhaustive:

  • download.php
  • gallery.php
  • profile.php?
  • .scr
  • .pif
  • URLs of extension .info

The messages containing one of these elements will quite simply not be transmitted to the recipients concerned. Before version 2008 of Windows Live Messenger, this filtering was visible since certain instant message software free, in the form of a very fast disconnection then reconnexion of the contact concerned. That does not seem any more to be currently applied, which perhaps shows a difference in the implementation of filtering.

See too

Other customers

References

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