Windows Live Messenger Library 2.5 to Rule Them All

Next week, Microsoft is gearing up to make an important step toward unifying the code bases for all the versions of Windows Live Messenger Library. In this context, the Redmond company announced that, by the end of the following week, Windows Live Messenger Library v2.0 would be modified so that it would point to the latest release, namely version 2.5. At the end of October 2008, the software giant revealed plans to no longer keep two separate code bases for v2.0 and v2.5 for Windows Live Messenger Library, especially since the two offered virtually the same features and functionality. Even though the transition was initially planned to be completed by the end of 2008, only next week will the Redmond company manage to unify the two code bases.

Microsoft already revealed details “about our planned change to point Windows Live Messenger Library V2.0 to V2.5. We plan to make this change next week. As we indicated previously, V2.0 and V2.5 are very close feature-wise, and we developed V2.5 to be fully backward compatible with V2.0. We have been maintaining separate code bases for each version. As you can imagine, there is a cost to maintaining two code bases for almost the same functionality,” Keiji Kanazawa program manager, Windows Live Messenger Contacts and Messenger Platform, explained.

“Because of this, we are unifying V2.5 and V2.0, using the V2.5 code base for both. What this means for you is that you will continue to be able to load the library at both URLs (http://www.wlmessenger.net/api/2.0/messenger.js and http://www.wlmessenger.net/api/2.5/messenger.js), but they will point to the exact same code,” Kanazawa added.

Moving onward, Microsoft will also replace v1.0 of the Windows Live Messenger Library with v 2.5. Offering support for Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 pre-release (but only in compatibility mode), Firefox 1.5, 2.0, and 3.0, as well as Safari 3.0, the Windows Live Messenger Library is essentially designed as a client-side library, which web developers can use in order to integrate the Redmond company's instant messaging client into their web-based applications. Version 2.5 came to the table with a new Messenger Script URL (provided above), but also with new features such as Contact Presence, Contact Display Names, Contact Nicknames, Endpoint Names, Showing and Hiding Sign-in Control, and Item Accessors.

Windows Live Messenger 9.0 (2009) RTW Build 14.0.8050.1202 is available for download here.