Windows Live Messenger and Windows 8 Messaging..

This morning, I messaged my sister on Windows Live Messenger. When she replied, the Windows 8 Messaging app popped up a box which as it turns out was mirroring the conversation. I can’t say that I was expecting it, but eventually I clicked on the box and continued typing to her. So far so good..

She asked me a question, and as usual, I was going to look it up in IE and paste a link back. Hmmmm.. easier said than done when in a full screen app with no apparent way to get to anything else.

Anyway, I hit the Winkey to get back to sensible mode, and the conversation thus far was in Messenger just as if I had typed it in directly. Having easily accessed IE, I pasted a couple of links in, and continued the conversation. At the end, I closed down Messenger and ALT F4’ed the Windows 8 app, and that was that. Yes? No.. 

I went back into the Windows 8 UI formerly known as Metro, clicked on the Messaging app to see if there was an easy way to switch between it and other apps, and to my horror, the entire conversation was still there..

I have found out that you can delete the conversation, but if you are not aware that you have to manually delete, it leaves privacy grovelling in the dirt. There is an option, the only option, to turn send/receive off, and I have done that..

I don’t expect to have any further dealings with Windows 8 Messaging, and when I am sure that using the option will stop it mirroring Windows Live Messenger, I will uninstall it..

There is another issue with Windows Live Messenger.

In XP and Vista, if you minimised it, Messenger hopped into the notification area and all was well. To get it to do the same in Windows 7, Messenger had to be run in Vista SP2 mode. Not so in Windows 8. It does hop into the notification area but also leaves itself on the Windows 8 desktop taskbar. Very annoying.. 

Windows 8 Mail..

What kind of email client doesn’t have POP3 account availability? Answer = The kind found in Windows 8.

What were the developers thinking?  I do have a IMAP mail  account which is piped into Outlook, but my ISP accounts are POP3 or I have to access them from the awful Yahoo web based interface. If it was up to me, I would use IMAP only , but there is no option for IMAP with Rogers mail and a good few other ISP mail services.

POP3 may not be the best mail protocol for use on a tablet or a smartphone, but Windows 8 is a desktop OS too, or so we are told.

I wish that Microsoft would quit removing features.