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Exclusive: New Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 screenshots revealed!

Jan 2, 2010 9:26 am by damaster | 18 comments

Following the screenshot leaks from Neowin.net earlier last month, our friend Picturepan2 from LiveSino.net was able to get some more exclusive screenshots of an internal build of the upcoming Windows Live Messenger Wave 4 just as the new year’s started.

First up is a screenshot of an improved Windows 7 taskbar thumbnail previews for Messenger Wave 4:

Seems like they’ve fixed the problem with Wave 3 where two thumbnail preview windows were shown for the Messenger application – one showing the user’s display picture and another showing the actual Messenger main window – now only the main Messenger window is shown. Also notice that they’ve added “Thumbnail Toolbars” functionality, allowing users to directly select their status from the thumbnail previews (much like how Windows Media Player works in Windows 7).

Next we can see that Messenger Wave 4 finally supports Tabbed Conversation windows! The tabs looks very similar to those in IE8. The ad also appears to be much larger, however there is a “X” button next to the ad, possibly allowing users to close the ad or return it back to text form. Take notice that the “Photos” and “Video” buttons have been moved from the top menu bar to below the typing area, while the “Winks” and “Background” buttons seems to be missing from the typing area. While we’re not sure whether “Background sharing” has been removed or not, it appears that “Winks” and “Emoticons” have been merged under the same menu:

Clicking on the “Photos” button reveals several new Photo Sharing features:

Besides sharing photos directly from those saved in your computer, Messenger Wave 4 integrates with Windows Live Photos and Bing Images to allow you to share your photos online directly with your contacts:

Do notice that these are work-in-progress screenshots and features shown are subject to change anytime between these build and the final version. However, based on what we’ve seen the Windows Live Wave 4 apps sure looks promising! Happy New Year to all our LiveSide readers out there!

This entry was posted in Featured, News and tagged Messenger, Wave 4, Windows Live. Bookmark the permalink.

http://UnleashThePhones.com/ Clinton Jeff
Looking pretty good so far. About time tabbed conversations made an appearance :)
redapple
Banner in conversation windows? Really bad idea. Hope that close button on right doesnt require “premium account” or something.
Garth
Glad they’ve fixed the duplicate taskbar thumbnail issue.
Anonymous
First of all, the ad in the conversation window looks like it will be extremely annoying to have. Wave 3 allowed us to make the windows extremely small, move everything away and keep it like that, so we could chat without tons of space blown away. And now with those ads, it looks like this is over. And whats wrong with those text banners anyway? I clicked more on a text ad because it was more interesting for me, then any of those banners.
And tabblet conversation. Why don’t put the tabs in the titlebar like office does? The bar shown in these previews are so extremely booring and feel misplaced to me. I would prefer to see something like office, or the way how Zune Media Player handles tabs.
The status icons in the taskbar preview look nice, cause I really hoped for something like this to appear. To bad that I can’t add one favorite person in that same preview window to start chatting with that person.
But comparing these screenshots to earlier screenshot, I see they are improving thins extremely, for the good. I just have the feeling they try to blow us away with ads in the next version, so much, people definitly move to cracked versions or other software.
- http://cid-280a1538334a1cb9.profile.live.com/ Seika
  Favourite contacts would be better in the right click menu IMO, like the MRU list in other applications.
  The status control is helpful, but rather than the small contact list thumbnail, why don’t they leave the user picture instead.
http://menthix.net/ Menthix
Banner on the bottom of the conversation window is bad. Even if you can close it.
Would be nice to see the the contacts list. Is it hidden intentionally in the taskbar preview, or is that an early bug?
- Damaster – LiveSide.net
  It’s hidden intentionally ;)
  Also for the banner ad, notice that some screenshots do show it as the original text ads. It’s still early stages so anything could happen.
  - http://menthix.net/ Menthix
    Hah, thought I saw a complete contactlist before. LiveSino has the same screenie without contacts list hidden: http://livesino.net/archives/2386.live :).
http://www.msgstuff.com/ absorbation
The new advertisements are a growing concern. I also want to know more about this social networking integration, but for now development seems to be rather slow, considering the Windows Live Messenger 2009 was released close to a year ago now.
- http://flavors.me/efelippe Evandro Felippe
  yep, for almost a year without a major release, Messenger appear to be in a super slow development, only now Microsoft decided to put tabs into Messenger, and this feature was one of the most requested feature for years (at least, better late than never).
  Social networking integration is nice too, but I was expecting more.
  Just hope that Microsoft have something up their sleeves =)
http://khristopher.com/ Khristopher
Love the tabs.
Hate that banner in the conversation window.
Anonymous
I would prefer tabs like that :
http://cid-201f3835d49587fe.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Images%20blog/WinLive%20Messenger%204.png
AndrewDoubleU
There are a lot of great features here, how they just have to make it look good. That banner ad would be the most annoying thing I have ever seen.
lordcanti86
Anyone have any idea when we’re getting Wave 4 Betas?
http://joshlam.com joshl
People have ads in Messenger?
A-Patch for the win.
Rafyelzz
There will always be a patch to hide the publi. Its annoying but well, i dont have publi for years already
brianm76
Was the duplicate taskbar thumbnail issue specific to certain versions of Windows? I never experienced it… Using Windows 7 Home Premium 64
tcaffeine
Isn’t the time to change emotions with new ones people got bored from the same emotions in each release :(