Well there we go boys and girls we finally have a reason for the delay in the next build of Windows Live Messenger 9.0. Microsoft has been working on a new feature which will change things drastically in the skinning world. Just a couple of minutes ago I received an email from the Windows Live Messenger team which has invited me to test the upcoming Windows Live Messenger 9.0 beta version which will feature none other than skins.

Ill share these details now since they didn't say that I couldn't post this but I'm sure they'll catch on soon enough and I will have to remove this post. So listen up!

Microsoft has been watching skins closely for quite some time now, in fact they started observing my stuff when I released the first version of Ev0 (yeah its freaky people at Microsoft actually tried something that breaks their own EULA..... irony).

Anyway after seeing Messenger Plus! 4.50 launch they saw how much interest there was in skinning and decided to try and implement an official system. At this point their system is apparently working and a new version of WLM 9.0 beta will be offered to butterflies within the next 2 weeks.

But don't think it is good news now, because there is more to this than meets the eye. Whilst official skins may be coming they come at a cost. Yes a cost. Microsoft will be implementing the same system they used for Winks and Dynamic Display Pictures where only developers who pay the license fee for the digital signature will be able to create skins.

So could this mean skinners could implement flash content into their skins? Quite possibly. But sadly this means the average person will not be able to make skins (apparently I will be able to get my hands on a license though because of my history with skinsBig).

Furthermore new "Premium skins" will also be introduced for paying customers which will feature a Windows Live Messenger without ad's.

Yep thats right Microsoft has been keeping tabs on how people remove ads and have come to the conclusion that people want a client without ad's. So they have come up with this new premium Messenger system to allow this (but hey we will get around that too huh Tongue)

So how does this affect Plus! Skinning? From what I have been told, the next Windows Live Messenger 9.0 is built from the ground up so all the techniques I know will be obsolete which could possibly impact the current skins dramatically.

Anyway I will be talking with Microsoft later today with regards to me trying out this new system. All I can say is they better have Aero implemented

It is recommended that everyone update to this new version as it contains fixes to a couple of minor issues that occur.

When the first Windows Aero Messenger was created I had talked to ipab about the idea of modifying his installer program so that people could select how certain parts of the skin were patched. We were going to have it so users could select certain aspects of the theme to be different e.g have a different color vista orb depending on what the user picked.

Of course in the end it was simply a no go due to the unbelievable amount of effort that would have been required. So now we come to Plus! skins. Plus! skins allow resources to be replaced conditionally which opened the way for this idea to work. I was going to make Windows Aero Messenger before Ev0 but couldn't as there was still things missing from the skinning system which just would not allow the core of the skin to be made.

So Messenger Plus! 4.60 was the answer to all of this which allowed the core of Windows Aero Messenger to be created. With the core working I was then able to create some groups that allowed people to switch from Windows Aero Messenger to Vista Live Messenger. But I did not stop there. I made it so pretty much every aspect of the skin was customizable. Here is a screenshot of the final options panel.