WLM 9 takes far longer than WLM 8.5 to sign in – mainly because the beta versions use a different server. WLM 9 was supposed to take advantage of Vista’s WPF, but surprisingly WLM 9 still has default Aero window frame instead of its own Live-styled theme. But more ironically, it’s XP that has the Live theme! LOL

WLM 9 uses the new Wave 3 design which will soon be implemented to all Live products.

The chat window has the option to collapse the display pictures & the toolbar. The new design does away with the separators as everything is blended together giving more prominence to the conversation. As expected, WLM 9 now supports animated gifs, but unfortunately, can only be seen if your contact has WLM 9!

Signature sounds! Yay! Everytime I sign-in, a 5s signature sound is played to all my contacts! You can edit per-contact sounds as well!

& because people would have certainly made abuse of it – like using a huge 5mb signature file, WLM 9 limits you to only 5s. But that was enough to catch the opening sequence of Top Gear Jessica! :)

Another innovation clickable status links!

WLM 9 also allows multiple sign-ins from different computers.

More features include Spammer notification – identify a spammer & WLM will add him to a blacklist & limit his usage! :P
WLM 9 sure has some new features, but since it’s beta the sign-in is a bit lengthy, but I would definitely recommend a try-out. The final version will be released at the end of this year.

Download Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta (Build 14.0.3921.717).
(Run only the Messenger.msi)

Download A-Patch for WLM 9.