Connect with People You Care About
It's easy to lose touch with friends and relatives you don't see regularly. We get so busy with our daily lives - work, family, school - that we don't always have time to visit with the people we care most about. Now it's easier than ever to stay in touch. The combination of the powerful features of Windows Vista and Windows Live services gives you an ideal communication and sharing experience.
Stay connected
A great way to enhance your Windows Vista experience is to add Windows Live Messenger, the next generation of MSN Messenger. You'll get everything you already love about MSN Messenger - your contact list, emoticons, and instant access to your contacts via text, voice, and video - plus a lot of new features.
Windows Live Messenger lets you connect with friends across IM networks.
With Windows Live Messenger you can instantly connect and share with friends on the world's most popular instant messaging (IM) network, and you also can connect with friends who use Yahoo's messenger service - without having to sign up for it. Windows Live Messenger keeps you connected to all of your contacts across different IM networks.
Windows Live Messenger has another handy feature: the ability to send and receive messages, even if one of the parties isn't online. Before, you could only send and receive messages when you and your contact were both logged on. Now you don't have to wait until you see your friend online to send a message - you can send the message anytime, and your contact will receive the message when he or she signs in. Likewise, you don't have to be signed in to write a message. You can write it, and it will be sent the next time you sign in.
You're not limited to text messages in Windows Live Messenger. You can also send personal pictures and other documents, files, and video clips that you create. Rather than send files back and forth through e-mail, sometimes it's handier to just put files in one place where everyone can get to them. If you'd like to have a single place where you and your friends can share personal files, the new Sharing Folders feature in Windows Live Messenger gives you an easy way to set up a shared collection of files.
Share personal files instantly in Windows Live Messenger.
If you're like a lot of people, you sometimes have trouble keeping your address book up to date. Windows Live services can help. When friends who are also using Windows Live Mail (the next generation of MSN Hotmail) update their online contact information, it's automatically updated on your computer in both Windows Live Mail and Messenger. And it works both ways: When you update your contact information, your contacts receive the new information when they sign in. So you and your contacts always have up-to-date information.
Connect the way you want to
Do you need to tell a friend something that's better said face to face, or do you just want to hear his or her voice? Windows Live Messenger is much more than text messaging. It can be your voice and video communication center. Messenger allows you to instantly connect with your friends and to express yourself with text, voice, and video.* With a webcam, clear full-motion video is just a click away, and at no cost.
The new Windows Live Call features* help you to stay in touch in the way that works best for you. You can make a free PC-to-PC call from your computer to the computer of any of your online contacts - worldwide. It's easy to call your contacts' wireless or landline phones**, too, at affordable rates, especially for long-distance calls.
Using Windows Live Call features, calling your friend's computer is easy. Just click the phone icon to get started.
*Requires a microphone and speakers or headset (webcam and broadband connection for video).
**PC-to-phone calling is a pay service provided by third-party web calling provider, where available.
