14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently announced that Windows Live Messenger would be officially retired on April 8, but the company is now sending out emails to all registered users to inform them about the change.
Windows Live Messenger will be discontinued in early April for English language clients, while Brazilian Portuguese users will be forced to make the move to Skype on April 30 or later.
“Starting April 8th, we will begin upgrading customers from Messenger to Skype. The process will take a few weeks to complete. April 8th is the first day you may be required to upgrade. This is a bit later than the March 15th date we previously mentioned to some of you as we wanted to give you more time to make the transition,” the email reads.
The company then goes on to provide more details about the transition, trying to convince users that the built-in Skype Messenger can fully replace the popular Windows Live Messenger client.
After the upgrade, users will no longer be able to sign in, but they will be allowed to migrate to Skype straight from their Messenger app.
“If you attempt to sign in, a notification will appear, and if you continue, you will be taken through our installer flow, to install Skype and automatically uninstall Messenger at the same time,” Microsoft says.
As we told you, the third-party Messenger clients will continue to live on, so even though Microsoft kills Windows Live Messenger, Pidgin, Trillian and IM+ users have nothing to worry about. Not for the moment, at least.
“To keep chatting with your Messenger contacts, simply upgrade to the latest version of Skype and sign in using a Microsoft account (this is the same ID you use to sign into Messenger). Once signed in, your contacts will already be there. You'll be able to instant message and make video calls with them just like before, and start discovering new ways of staying in touch, including Skype on your mobile or tablet,” the email also adds.