I'm back in charge of things. That means you can ask me questions, like you did before (and I'll take too much time to answer some of them, as I did before ). That also means that software development is back on track, with proper releases, documented changes in the change log.

Most skinners, specially the good ones like Willz, are extremely busy with their personal lifes. And, unfortunately, there aren't that many people interested in making skins, only in requesting/using them.

The decline of IM in itself fails to attract new developers, and although the skinning platform is now more open, there is a lack of talent willing to exploit it. Windows Live Messenger 2009 has been the worse major Messenger build in terms of skinning developers and much of this boils down to the lack of designers who know what they are doing (excluding Willz).

It happened with the transition to MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger. There were at least 7 people making skins at that time and then all of a sudden they all disappeared leaving about 3.

Its the same thing now, it's just up to someone new to come in a keep things going. Really a person can only skin for so long before their personal lives become more involved and it becomes time to move on.

Ultimately its up to the new people to carry things onto 2010.

Looking at the raw stats it doesn't look so bad. Still millions of people using Plus!, number of active users fairly steady, certainly when you take into account the long time since the last major Plus! release (which always gives a nice boost). People are still downloading skins.

mynetx: Skins - good word. Is cus­tomiz­ing the Mes­sen­ger in­ter­face fun for you? Or a se­ri­ous busi­ness? Or in be­tween?

Will: Well a bit of both re­al­ly. Orig­i­nal­ly I start­ed skin­ning as a hobby so that I could help im­prove my abil­i­ties as a mul­ti­me­dia de­sign­er. I was hop­ing that by work­ing with an es­tab­lished user in­ter­face I would be able to gain a deep­er un­der­stand­ing as to how the user in­ter­prets UI’s.

I never re­al­ly ex­pect­ed to be doing it for that much main­ly be­cause I didn’t think that au­di­ence was big enough at the time. But it seems that has changed in re­cent times so now I do treat it more se­ri­ous­ly.

But yeah for the most part there is still the orig­i­nal sense of fun which at­tract­ed me to doing it in the first place.

For the past few weeks I have been playing around with 9 seeing what has changed and how far we can push things. I have to say that although there are a lot of changes and nearly double the amount of layout files to modify, overall 9 is going to bring some really interesting things to the table. One of the things I am looking forward to playing with is with some of the new effects that Messenger 9 brings such as fades, text glows and other types of animation.

I should also point out that I am only able to modify 9 because of a small workaround that was discovered that allows us to force Messenger to use its old layout files over the new ones. This allows skins, Messenger addons and patches to do their thing on 9 once again. Most people are counting this as a victory saying that stuff is possible again on 9, but really all this was was something to buy us some time. The old layout files have a really high chance of not existing in the final version of 9 so we will be back to square one.

The main problem about 9 still exists and in order for things to survive in the final version of 9 the new layout file format of Messenger 9 has to be figured out properly or we will be stuck with not being able to modify Messenger again. This new layout file isn't standard XML and style information that we can easily edit with any text editor, instead it is some weird file type that can't be read or edited properly without cracking it.

Deformity Category
- 1st Place: Crystal Lab by ZOiD winner of a Cintiq 12WX.
- 2nd Place: SilverGlazz by LuckyMe winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

Originality Category
- 1st Place: Stormless Messenger by mynetx winner of a Cintiq 12WX.
- 2nd Place: Beaver and Steve by aNILEator winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

Functionality Category
- 1st Place: Wii Messenger by Ethan Li winner of a Cintiq 12WX.
- 2nd Place: Windows Live Messenger 2009 by roflmao456 winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

- Top Place: Oil Slick by Volv who wins the Cintiq 20WSX!

I am happy to say that the official skin database has now more than a hundred different skins for all of you to enjoy. More about that will be said when the winners are announced, on the 26th of September.

On a side note, I'd like to apologize for the problems you may have experienced with the Emotion Sounds feature of Messenger Plus! lately. Microsoft is not the only company who has suffered from server issues in the past few weeks (I wish I could spend time buying a new pair of shoes too). We're currently in the process of putting everything back together, you can expect service to be back to normal by tomorrow. Thank you for your patience and your understanding.

Basically instead of using Messengers own resources like always, the new Aero frame that Messenger uses relies on Windows Vista's own theme which means skinners can no longer edit this part of Messenger under Windows Vista unless Aero is disabled at all times. So what does that mean exactly? It means that you will not be able to have a truly complete Messenger skin under vista whilst Aero is enabled. There are a few other things that 9 brings that also kill a few skinning techniques that people use at the moment. One of the new things the 9 brings to the table is the fact that resources are now 90% MSNRLE, which means there will be a lot of resources that will not be able to be replaced without being able to replicate the layers that MSNRLE images use. One of these is the emoticons, normally skinners edit one png image, but with the new beta they are now an MSNRLE image which means they are impossible to replace because there is no emoticon code anywhere and in order to replace a MSNRLE with a png you must have access to its code. The only solution is to somehow replicate the layered MSNRLE (which isn't possible at the moment).

Starting today, you have 5 weeks to create the most outstanding skin imaginable. The deadline is September 14th at 23:59:59, Greenwich Mean Time. To participate, all you need to do is submit a skin to the official database (the contest is open worldwide), updates of existing skins are accepted. All the skins will be tested in the current most popular version of Messenger, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 (no need to make them work in the outdated Messenger 9 Beta from last winter).

Not 1 but 7 Wacom Tablets will be distributed to the winners of this contest. Your skin(s) will be judged and placed into three different categories: originality (something never done before), deformity (shaped windows), and functionality (improved user interface). The first prize for each category is an excellent Cintiq 12WX (check out the video on their site), a 12.1" TFT screen that acts like a second monitor for your computer and lets you draw directly on the pictures you want to edit with incredible precision. The second prize for each category is a very respectable Intuos3 6*8 with 1,024 pressure levels and professional software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. And finally, the creator of the one best skin, all categories considered, will get rewarded for his efforts with a magnificent Cintiq 20WXS. This dream-come-true for any graphic designer features a 20.1" wide screen with a resolution of 1680*1050, has 14 customizable hard keys, 2 touch strips, a special rotating stand so that you can use the tablet like a big sheet of paper, anti-glare and friction coating to simulate the texture of paper and a wide viewing angle.