Well here is a small status update on how things are going with Windows Live Messenger 9. After a bit of playing around it has been found that the situation with 9 is a lot worse than what was originally imagined. The Windows Vista side of skinning seems to be taken a turn for the worse, but now it seems that we have been given a sign as to what Microsoft truly thinks of the customization community to which we have all begun to love.

Over the past day or so people have been asking me to go back to my roots and make a simple DLL skin so that would make a few minor changes to the Windows Live Messenger 9 UI so that it was, well a bit more how some people want it to be.

What I found odd was that there was no signs of any of the patching programs (like MessPatch and aPatch) being updated for 9, which was really weird. Anyway I went on and made a really simple change to 9 just to see if the code I knew still worked and then found that no changes were being applied.

Finding this to be odd I kept on trying and nothing seemed to work. No matter what I did, any edit I did to the code would not show. Images could be replaced fine, but for some reason the code would not change. So I took a drastic measure and just fully cleared the code for the sign in window, that way I could know once and for all if it was being ignored or not. Basicly Messenger should not have opened at all if I did this and well it did.

After about an hour of all this and some trial and error it has been found that Messenger introduces a new kind of UI system which skinners and patchers aren't able to edit (yet). This move is pretty much the same move Microsoft did to us back with WLM 8 when they first introduced the MSNRLE format (which still can't be replicated). So at the moment skins and patches are dead (except for certain patching options that don't need to modify messengers layout, like polygamy).

So of course this is sending everyone into a panic because people are thinking this is truly the end of skinning and patches as we know it. But like I tell everyone, It ain't over till it's over. There are plenty of brilliant minds still working hard behind the scenes to try and get back the unofficial edits we all know and love.

So this is why there is nothing out for 9 at the moment, its simply because we have been caught by surprise and well trying to put the pieces back together. So what I ask of people is to be patient and to not go to forums demanding for patches, skins and updates for 9. Sending emails as well doesn't help either. At the moment it is chaos and the last thing that is needed is a whole bunch of people demanding stuff. If you want your patches and skins, then stick to 8.5 until a solution has been reached.

But Windows Live Messenger 9 isn't all about nasty horrible surprises. Windows Live Messenger 9 has a few things that will actually be awesome should we be able to edit the user interface again. I won't really get into technical details since most people won't really care, but in a nutshell it means that we can take advantage of some of the new effects they add fairly easily (at least in theory) and make some pretty interesting modifications to Messenger. But yeah, that all relies on being able to edit the thing first......

Anyway its going to be a slow couple of weeks, because until all of this gets sorted out..... well yeah I'm not going anywhere.

I also encourage people to use the public beta of 9, the one thing that is crucial in a beta is feedback. So if something really annoys you in 9 (asides from not being able to edit the thing ) make sure you submit some feedback. For those of you playing at home that is found under "Help" > "Send Feedback". If something annoys a lot of people, chances are they might change it.

Stay tuned for updates.

Willz

Willz Wrote:if something really annoys you in 9 (asides from not being able to edit the thing )

Damn

Hope all of this takes an upwards turn, I really like skinning. Patch will find a way, though

where is my mind