MSN Forcing users to 'Latest Version'

[Jsoh]

As long as you can change your screen name i will happily update. Can you?

[Shar]

It would be great if it even allows me to sign onto msn.
I absolutely hate the new version :@

[xxMATTGxx]

As long as you can change your screen name i will happily update. Can you?

First name and last name only, if they haven't changed it since.

[mynameiswootzeh]

Where I work we should be all switching to thin clients with windows 7 + office 2010 sometime this year as xp and 2003 wont be supported anymore soon or something. going be more work for me but meh!
im staying on old msn as long as possible

[Luke]

In all fairness, you use WLM as a form of communicating - it doesn't REALLY matter what it looks like or if you can't have a "personalised name" - to me, the fact it shows the First and Last name rather than a stupid one that has no relevance to the person what so ever is a brilliant change. It's you who's talking, so surely - isn't it better that it shows you actual name..

Much cleaner imo.

[GommeInc]

In all fairness, you use WLM as a form of communicating - it doesn't REALLY matter what it looks like or if you can't have a "personalised name" - to me, the fact it shows the First and Last name rather than a stupid one that has no relevance to the person what so ever is a brilliant change. It's you who's talking, so surely - isn't it better that it shows you actual name..

Much cleaner imo.

True It's a growing trend to use real names, or at least clean names. Take Myspace vs. Facebook - Facebook requires you to actually have a real name that isn't filled with symbols, while Myspace (which is dying) was a mess of squiggles and awful rubbish that made everyone migrate to Facebook.

I think Microsoft are doing this because it will cost them a lot to support an old (ish) OS which is very different to the new ones. It's not to spite anyone, but to have to re-write a program to be compatible with another OS is time consuming for a company, even one as wealthy as Microsoft. It's life However, in saying that, I don't see why they can't make a watered down, XP compatible messenger, unless there is something with server related magic?

[Markeh]

We are forgetting here that there will be alternatives to the MSN client that will work on XP machines. And probably always will be. Other smaller companies don't force-upgrade usually.

[JoeyK.]

My point was about the OS, not the hardware. A P4 with 2GB RAM would hapilly run Windows 7, which if people had preordered, would have been £30, not £75, and students can get it very cheaply (oh, also, I do get my own paycheck, and I pay for my stuff out of my own money unless it's a gift...)

Microsoft also have a right to stop supporting 10 YEAR OLD operating systems to make people upgrade if they so wish, Apple recently did it with iPhone 1 and have been doing it with every version of Mac OS since it was released. If people want to use Microsoft's products (MSN), they have to keep up with their core product's life cycles (Windows 7).

I also never said about throwing out old systems in a home environment, old systems can work 100% dandy in a home environment, but when you have a load of Windows 2000 machines on a P3 CPU with 512mb RAM, it's time to bin them in my work environment where we're expected to deliver ICT lessons properly, Businesses have a little more leverage here too, but even so, they have to move off XP at some point.

I'd also like to point out, a lot of new games and applications being released nowadays WILL NOT run on XP (funny considering that's partly what the thread's about )

Teens with their own paychecks who aren't responsible for a majority of their living expenses have a lot more expendable income than most people 18-25 trying to put themselves through college and working full-time though, especially if they're paying rent, utilities, possibly a car payment, etc. That's the only point I was trying to get across.

Your point about a £30 preorder is true, though I personally would never do so again (Dealing with the Vista launch was a headache for me, I'd rather give the company time to iron out the bugs and deal with compatibility issues first) - I just personally feel that forcing an user to upgrade their operating system or hardware in general to use as basic a service as instant messenger is pushing it. I'd say the same thing if a search engine, for example, had the same requirements.

However, I'm sure Microsoft will offer a solution for XP customers anyway, I can't see why they wouldn't.

[Burkey]

I really dont like the new one

[Nick]

tbh i kinda like the new version but once it upgraded i was like wooow how do i work this and eventually i got used to it.