MSN Messenger 7.0.0604 BETA Overview

The day after several screenshots of the newest build of MSN Messenger 7 beta (604) were released by beta sites and such sites like Neowin, some special internal god working at Microsoft leaked once again, an alpha version not even available to official MS Beta Testers (and won’t be available until March).

Unlike the other betas that were released in the past (official or leaked) this version (being 604) comes with no immediate risks-- no threat of inappropriate winks or dynamic display pictures to worry about. And quite frankly for an alpha, it’s pretty damn stable.

So, I bet your wondering what’s new right? I’ve compiled a list of new features and items you will see changed in this new build.

Features:

• First off, not only do you have the option to change your status before you sign in, but you have the option to save this status so it can be used every time you login.
• Next you will notice a feature that displays “type a personal message”. Basically, you have the option to leave a personal message that will display in italics next to your online status. This can say actually anything, from why you are away or to a plug for your favourite site. The next neat thing about this is, when listening to a song in Windows Media Player, it displays the name of the song as the personal message. It changes automatically as your play list changes.
• In the contact list, you will notice, that you can view your contact’s display pictures as thumb nail images next to their friendly-names. These images can be made larger via the Options menu. You also have the option to remove them totally.
• The actual online status indicator image is changed as well. The Gleam for MSN Spaces is also changed.
• A button to MSN Spaces is added next to MSN Hotmail and MSN Today.
• Your display picture at the top above the buttons, when clicked displays your Contact Card instead of the option to change your display picture.
• You no longer have the option to hover over a contact’s friendly-name to view their email address. Viewing their contact card or opening a conversation seems like the only current way to view it.
• A new feature in the conversation window. You will notice a “Search” button underneath the “Send” one. What this does is when text is entered into the conversation, pressing search will display the first four hits on MSN Search. A link to more searches is given.
• The “Draw & Write” tabs have been re-created.
• The (?) or also known as the ASL emoticon has been replaced with the (nah) or goat emoticon.
• There seems to be an “Offline Messaging” feature which at the moment is grayed out. At this time “Show my offline messages automatically when I sign in” is auto-checked, but it seems to do nothing. No offline messaging feature can be found. This can possibly be a future feature.
• You now have the option to hide the handwrite tab (via the Options menu). It's on by default.
• Connections tab via Options has been made much more advanced.
• "(email) is not in your contact list. Click here to add him or her now." is now displayed when you receive a message from someone not on your contact list.
• Display pictures are displayed with a one pixel border.
  
  Current Bugs found in the 604 beta (and there are not many):
  
• When a user signs out while you still have their conversation window open, it will occasionally, more often than not, not display that they are offline. If it does however, you will see a notice that they are plus have the option to send messages via MSN Mobile to them.
• When you click a Wink before the menu is fully loaded MSN Messenger crashes.
• Inputting Asian characters (UTF8) in a Search will result in weird search results.
• The contact card will appear at the right edge of the screen when a window is maximized.
• Custom Emoticons and Animated Custom Emoticons can still not go in the same message simultaneously.
• Webcam support is broken between two MSN Messenger 7.0.0604 builds (Static image and time-outs).
• When switching to Ink mode the whole window might become one big drawing board.
• There is still no way of forcing a proxy. TCP will be forced, after that the Web Gateway and after that proxies.
• When enabling large MSN Display Picture thumbnails in the contact list, emoticons in nicknames are resized and don't look so good.
• When your contact has set a status other than Online, your own status information will disappear from the conversation window.
• The "What am I listening to" feature cannot read the "&" key.

Now of course, mess.be has several hacks for this version of messenger including:

• Mess Patch
• Custom Games Patch
• “Toaster RC2” which allows you to use Winamp instead of Windows Media Player (as a Winamp plugin)
• “MSN Messenger Music plug-in” which displays more information about the song you are playing.
• Dutch translation of Messenger.
• “Song Swapper Patch” which changes the order of the displayed song. Displays artist then song title instead of vise versa.

So the choice is ultimately up to you. If you're a die hard MSN Messenger fan willing to give this a try (even though you shouldn't) download yourself a copy and leave your comments. All plugin downloads can be found on mess.be.

[- thanks to mess.be for some of the bugs found in this release. -]