Microsoft have released a final version of MSN Messenger 7.5 (7.5.0299) on the public MSN Messenger site.

First screens first, the sign in screen has been redesigned. If you tick the Remember Me option, it will show your MSN Display Picture and automatically fill in your e-mail address. There are separate options for saving your password as well, or sign in instanteneously altogether.

New Signup Window

Not much changes in the main window : the Add a Contact has been replaced at the top of the Contact List (rendering the bottom "I want to" actions pane obsolete) and the My Space button is now titled My MSN Space .



 Arriving in the conversation window , the Webcam and Audio buttons are now renamed to Video & Voice and the Video button also has a new symbol. A completely new feature we announced before are the Voice Clips , which enable you to send voice messages (or whatever you sample, really) by holding the button (or hold F2) and recording through your microphone. Yelling your contact's name sounds like a good alternative to the Nudge button. Obviously, this feature only works if both contacts own MSN Messenger 7.5 .

Add a Contact

Bloat-alert: just like MSN Display Pictures , conversation window backgrounds can now be dynamic. While I have yet to see it in action, I can imagine many an epilepsy seizure caused by these Dynamic Backgrounds . I don't think anyone was waiting for this feature, but according to KebecoiS : " the animation is more pleasant [than Winks], the text color matches it so you can still see it clearly and it's not just annoying ". Two Dynamic Backgrounds from Blue Mountain are included in this BETA. One has a fish swimming , the other shows world clocks (though according to Mini-Me the times shown on the clocks are not accurate, screenshot by sinuz ).

Finally, some bad news for the pre-XP generation. According to XxRebelSeanxX on the forum, the MSN Messenger 7.5 setup only supports Windows XP . There's a small chance that this issue is limited to the BETA.

Voice Clip in MSN 7.5 beta