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MSN Messenger
MSN Messenger is becoming a very popular Instant Messenger. Using a Microsoft Passport to sign in, you can talk to your buddies online!
The MSN Messenger program is free, and can be downloaded from http://messenger.msn.com. You will need a Microsoft Passport to sign-in, but if you have signed up to any MSN services before, such as Hotmail or Communities, you can use your passport from them.
Once you have downloaded the MSN Messenger software, and have installed it, you are presented with a Welcome screen. Follow the instructions through if you either need to a) get a passport or b) if you have one; fill in the details for it.
Once you click Finish/Next, you will see MSN Messenger signing in:
Hopefully after a few seconds (it may take longer when the service is busy) you will be signed in to the MSN Messenger service, where you are presented with a window like this:
As you can see, we don't have any contacts on our list. Click the ADD button to add a contact, using their Passport E-mail Address. After following the steps through, you can see now you have a contact on your list. On my list, I have quite a few, as you can see -
Here we can see someone called Poseidon is online (in the green) whereas the rest of the contacts are offline (In the red)
To start an instant message with someone, double click on their name. There are a lot more options for a buddy if you right click on there name, such as Delete, Send a file, e-mail, block, view profile and so on!
This window is the conversation with the person - You type your text in the box, and hit send or enter. The message is then sent to the other person, and they can see it in the white area. As you can see from the screenshot, the window tells you at the bottom when the other person is typing. Also from this Window you can Block (Appear Offline) the person, Voice Chat with them and Invite them into games and Netmeeting.You can even invite up to 5 other people into your conversation!
When you receive a new message from someone, or one of your buddies signs in, or you receive e-mail in your Hotmail Inbox, a small popup window will appear by your clock and the MSN Messenger icon in your system tray.
These alerts popup over the top of any windows, and disappear after a few seconds. You can click the text in a alert popup to start a new message with a buddy who has just signed in, or read a e-mail in your Hotmail inbox.
You can change your online status to your buddies, and appear offline to them (hide), Away, Out for Lunch, Busy etc. Just click on your own name, and choose a status from the list!
You can change your nickname, text size, colour and other options by going to TOOLS > OPTIONS... on the MSN Messenger Window.
This is only intended to be a brief guide to MSN Messenger - a better guide can be found in the Messenger help files and on the MSN Website. We will try to expand our guide to MSN Messenger shortly.
Last Amended : 2003-01-01 by elfin
Original Author : DJ
This page was last updated at