I have never use skype so am hating the forced change, still running live messenger until the last possible second.

I not think you updated skype in a while or just not used it mate.

1. Fully separate groups on skype.
2. You for a long time now (years) can be offline but online with skype.
3. Contact history is fine and can go back 6 months. Works well, been the case for a long time.
4. Separate windows for conversations is supported in Skype. Double click the name rather then single click to get a new chat window for that person.


I think you need to check your version mate and just use it. Has all the features you think it does not have.

I use Skype every day, I even had a work account setup with credit.

1. That's not what I was getting at really, besides which they serve no purpose when you bear in mind the other points.
2. Switching offline for everyone as it is in Skype and appearing offline for certain contacts are two entirely different things.
3. Doesn't seem to work well at all for me even though I've got it set to 'Keep forever'. It's also garbage that it tries to load the history in the window instead of a nice searchable seperate message history panel going back until the dawn of time. Messenger did this much better.
4. I'm on the latest version and that doesn't seem to work at all, either in the Contacts pane or the Recent conversations pane. --- Ahh it seems you have to be in the hidden out of plain sight 'Compact Mode' for this to work... That's much more MSN like, cheers Liam.

2. Bit different then mate, not at the moment but the group and person offline option is coming.
3.  History is there and it is also searchable, command f brings it up for me on mac and finds within that chat history.
4. Not sure but since they released it it always has done so in either mode for me on mac.

didn't know about this... not keen on it either

only use skype for voice chat while gaming with my nephew tbh... it's crap for chat


fingers crossed they might bring out a new version which is half and half ?

Have already started making changes to have some msn features before the news of the shut down.

That's good to know. If they can fix these few issues I'll be happy enough with it, I still think it's a shame they couldn't just make an update for MSN that gets it talking over the same system as Skype rather than retiring it altogether as everyone knows and has used MSN for probably a decade.

I think its because people have heard of skype but MSN Messenger is dying a death, or at least it seems to be for me so they'll be wanting all the users from MSN and Skype together so they can say look people are actually using our IM programs rather than just google talk.

As it is I've changed over on my laptop but not my main PC at home, biggest gripes I have are the not being able to block/appear offline to individual users and no email alerts.  Hopefully they'll get sorted as the two intergrate more and if not someone suggest moving to Trillian as it does email alerts.  But we'll wait and see can't remember the last chat I had on it.

I use digsby, only because it merges msn, Facebook and my email accounts, I don't think it does Skype though, but not that I use it as I'm on a company phone and they pay my bill ;-)

I expect so, digsby often breaks anyway when MS change their protocols, although this thread might explain why there have been issues, Skype though, I believe it's fairly closed in terms of protocol, unless things have changed, but they aren't using the VoIP favourite SIP, so not sure on how easy it is to integrate in to 3rd party software.

If you have a look at MS Lync, it's the same concept though, but utilising proper VoIP and exchange integration, so expect this will be another addition for that also for this without a PBX to integrate to.

Anyway if my hotmail account got hacked, I don't think I'd waste the time to get it back, it's full of spam and all my instant messaging is pretty much carried out via Facebook and SMS