In Media Center 2005 a feature called Media Center Messenger was added which incorporated Messengers functionality into overlay windows. If you’ve had a play with the Vista beta’s you might of noticed that the feature has disappeared. The reason for this is that the feature was written to use the API (application programming interface) of Windows Messenger 4.7/5.0. In Vista there is no built in Messenger client, and all the MSN versions of Messenger (until recently, but see closing comment) do not contain the correct API to allow MC to hook in. For the time being this appears to be a lost feature in Vista, even installing Messenger 4.7 will not make it come back. Part of the reason why Windows Messenger got removed in Vista is because no team is actively developing it anymore. Home users get served by MSN, Business have a better client in the form of Office Live Communicator. So the obvious choice might be to hook into the MSN ‘Live’ client instead, however that would mean placing a dependency from a Widows Component on a product that isn’t included with Windows, and very likely doesn’t meet the same bars that are required of Windows components. Never say never, but it’s probably less likely.
