Yahoo Messenger 7 Beta Reviewed

Yahoo started offering preview of its new messenger Yahoo Messenger 7 this wednesday. As most of my friends call it Yahell instead of YIM, I was really curious to experience the new offerings .. So here it goes ..

Whats new in YIM 7 :

  •    Apart from a few cosmetic changes, YIM’s newest feature is PC to PC calls .. Now YIM users can make direct pc to pc calls free over the net .. This move is due to increasing userbase of Skype and Hello! services which Yahoo! thinks it can attract .. The quality of voice mail was good indeed on my dialup line ..
    Voice Call
  • The looks are changed a bit too .. Now the messenger shows a pop up description of contacts and most tasks are available in the pop up …
    Profile Popup

  • There is a nice integration with Yahoo 360 ..You can post your blog or blast from the Messenger itself .. You can also add your friends through Yahoo Messenger . ..
  • Contact names are visible in Conferences and Chatrooms .. This was really needed ..
    Contacts name showing up in Conf
  • New Report as Spam feature .. Now you can ignore spammers as well as notify Yahoo to add them to black list .. Another nice addon ..
    New Spam reporting feature
  • And some others like you can set the individual ringtones and search from conference or chat windows , lots of audibles for Indian users .. ..

Now .. What are new bugs in YIM 7 (Beta) :

  •    As this was a beta release, many bugs were expected .. As soon as I installed the new version, it asked me to reboot the system .. Hell .. I hadnt rebooted my system for week now and a program like messenger was asking to reboot WinXP .. Anyways .. I rebooted and Yahoo Messenger started by itself on the next boot .. And crashed instantly .. There you go I thought ..
    Yahoo Messenger Crashed
  •    Anyways .. It logged me in when I started it again .. New icons in Systray looked cool .. I thought it used less resources than the previous one .. but I wasnt able to prove it .. Anyways .. I liked the new look . .. I got the invite to enter the conf ..and everyone’s display names were shown as in my address book .. Good going .. I thought .. Then I found something is missing .. I wanted to disable voice chat .. but the button was nowhere to be seen .. A bit of juggling showed me that it was now in the menu .. Thats not good
  • Anyways . .. I clicked on Conference to call other freinds to the conf .. And this new Join Conference box came up ..    Earlier only those contacts which were Online and were not in the Conf room were displayed in the Messenger list but now it showed all my contacts .. . Argh .. this is troublesome .. Finding who is not in the room and exploring my 100+ contacts was not gonna fun .. Anyways .. I thought maybe they ‘ll put this up in the Final version ..
    New Join Conference Dialog
  •     Another surprise came when I clicked on a link posted by someone in the Conf window .. As soon as I clicked it, an error message popped up .. It even pop up when you only select a link .. Argh .. This is pain .. To open the link posted in the conf window, I had to select the link alongwith the poster’s name and then Ctrl C to copy .. And then Ctrl V to paste it to my browser and remove the author’s name to open the link ..
    Conference Error
  •    Then I decided to send a file to my friend and the notification came up that my friend was using a “different version” of Yahoo Messenger so “some features” were not available .. File Transfer included those . .. My friend was using Gaim … Curiously Call button was not disabled.. I decided not to test that Call with Gaim …
    Different Version
  •    Soon I figured out that File transfer was actually not supported at all .. Even with friends using YIM7 too .. If I send a file to my freind he never get the notification and vice versa .. .. I hope this will be fixed in the final version .. I tried to use Recieve File feature to find out that the feature is missing too..
    Recieve File missing
  • Now I was getting annoyed .. Anyways .. I decided to test it for a day or two so that I can write an elaborate review like this ..
  • Last night I needed to send an offline messege to my friend but damn .. where is the View menu in the main window ..? How can I enable viewing offline friends ..? I remembered the Shortcut key Ctrl H though.. But after a little searching I found it was now in Contacts menu .. Lol I thought ..
  • After three days of beta testing and about 30-35 crashes, I decided that now is the time of beta version to leave .. So I ran the Yahoo Messenger 6’s installer (without uninstalling prev version) and YIM 6 was back .. But now it was with a surprise .. Two new tabs were added to YIM6 too .. Buzz and Yahoo360 .. Lol .. I thought .. I tested posting from YIM6 and it worked well .. Everything else is perfectly normal though .. So .. If you want to have Yahoo 360 support in your Yahoo Messenger 6, install the YIM7 Beta and then install YIM6 again over it
    Yahoo 360 in Yahoo Messenger 6 !

All in all .. Even though I liked the new features in the Yahoo Messenger, but because of its frequent crashes and bugs I started calling it YMess 7 .. I think its a bit cooler nick than Yahell 😀 .. But certainly .. I am waiting for the final version .. I hope it will be soon out with all those creepy bugs removed and it will surely rock .. I will look forward to have RSS support in Yahoo Messenger too ..

You can download the Beta version from here : US Version and Indian Version

The main difference between Indian version and US version is that Indian version got a ton of Indian audibles but it has no PC to PC calls feature as VoIP is still illegal in India as one of the comments pointed out..

60 thoughts on “Yahoo Messenger 7 Beta Reviewed”

  2. Henrik, from Orkut here. A nice review there. Ýou’re quite brave to use beta-software, especially when coming from Yahoo! 😉

    Cheers!

  4. Apart from a few cosmetic changes, YIM’s newest feature is PC to PC calls .. Now YIM users can make direct pc to pc calls free over the net ..
    VoIP is illegal in India. Thats why they have released another version for India. The Indian version is without the PC-to-PC call feature.

  6. I dont see any difference between PC-to-PC and Yahoo! Messenger chat option. I mean what’s all this hype of PC-to-PC about? Yahoo! had voice chat option since its many previous releases. Anyways, i’ll be happy to find out that I am wrong. At least it would make me feel better 😀

  7. Hey,
    Just one thing I encoutered, at the popup message that appears when u hold the mouse over the name of a contact. If the messenger window is fullscreen the winpopp can’t be seen because of the taskbar, not completley, but part of the winpop. I don’t know of this happens just to me, or everyoane else, but you should take a look at that part of programming. 🙂

  8. its nice. can anybody tell me that whether we can download more indian audibles. if so pls send me the link for download. I will be thankful to you.

  9. Hi there Awais .. Just download and install Indian version … The link is up there in the first post .. For more you can add by More Audibles in the Yahoo Messenger itself ..

  10. Assalamo alaykum! Gyz this is fully working. I like it very much. Try it ur self.
    Ur well wisher MSA [Muhammad Shoaib Ahmed Dajli] from Pakistan [Dera Ghazi Khan]

  11. yahooo beta is crap……stealth setting is not working anymore……join room won’t work create room neither adn pc call is suspended.Oh and the worst evrer …up arrow re-type the last sentence function is not available anymore.

    My rank for this product is 2 from 10

  12. Yahoo beta has some bugs for sure…It is also my understanding that Yahoo has removed the option for user created rooms….but still my fiance and I use it to play games in messages to keep from going to the rooms

  13. i am using win98. as soon as singned into messenger it shows one error msg and the messenger get closed..? i hav doubt whether this problem arises coz of windows older versio. can anyone give me suggestion for this problem ..

  14. AVOID 7Beta. It won’t load on my laptop, and then wouldn’t let me reload 6.0. I had to run 5. I have tried every trick in the book short of reinstalling XP, and can not get 6 to connect any more. On the machine that does have 7, I can’t do voice with YIMs who are on older versions.

  16. I so appreciate this review! Thanks ever so much for
    it!
    I have the beta version and am experiencing no problems
    with it; however, I am not into sending files and whatnot…
    Sadly, my dearest pal had to get rid of his beta version–
    crashes GALORE! *sigh*
    xoxo,
    A.

  17. Cool Review there m8 ,

    @bob , I think Yahoo! Mess does not go one well with some machine`s but where it does it works Great . 🙂

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  23. Hey thats a grt review …. i too have experienced many probs with YIM 7 ….. it sucx!!!
    The biggest problem wud be when u r changing ids …. u logout of one id n try logging on the other id wud give u an error to close Ypager “Ypager has caused an error in . Ypager will now close …. blah blah blah….
    This im not sure is only with me as i tried using this at other pc’s and it gave me the same error.
    I was fine wid that till this morning when my frnd gave a me a grt info abt YIM 7.
    He said that there is a key logger (default) with YIM 7 and is stored in some email addr which anyone can access and all ur personal data is at risk (im not sure though how far its true ….. as im yet to get Mr.herlock Holmes to research on this) neways i was baffled by this but then i neways planned to uninstall this ….. and now after reading these reviews im sure im gonna uninstall this for sure ….. these new features dont help much neways

    Adios,
    Neha.

  24. Hi there Neha .. Thanx 🙂 ..
    Well about the keylogger, I am sure that isnt true .. Maybe someone else had installed the keylogger on your friend’s system which he mistook for YIM .. Although there are no keylogger in YIM but still the bugs are there .. Lol yes .. Only the contact name being displayed in tha conference is something you can find usefull.. all others are stil crap .. Anyways .. Thanx for such a nice comment ..

  25. Hey hi ….. I duuno about it …. as per my frnd he read about it as a bug in YIM 7 on some website or smewhr …. neways that link u provided for Indian Version doesnt allow one to download. It says page cannot be displayed when u clik on it ….but then im unable to uninstall YIm 7 ….. help me with that ….
    Adios,
    Neha

  26. Hmm.. The link is working here Neha .. Try Right Clicking and choosing Save As .. Or add the link to your download manager ..
    Hmm.. If you cant uninstall YIM7 then just run the YIM6 installer again .. I did that .. and it worked all right ..

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  30. hey i want to know how can i change my existing mobile no. to another new no. of mine please reply as soon as possible cause i m in hurry thanks

    plz reply via mail

  31. Hmm.. Do this in Messenger main window :
    Messenger > Preferences
    Click on General
    in the bottom there is an option :
    Edit my mobile device ..
    You can modify your settings there .. 🙂

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  33. Pingback: ~ ~ Shahabs Space ~ ~ Blog Archive Yahoo Messenger 7 Beta Reviewed

  34. i downloded the us version and got no audibles nor im environment noe games nothin.
    why
    just because an indian is downloading a US version 🙂

  37. all im after the (Audibles) that appeares on the front when you send a messeg the one they talk. i remove the hole programe and download it again and still the same .is there something else i have to do to get them back ?

  38. Great review… but the BETA only worked for about a week on my system, then it refused connections forever — can’t go back to an earlier version either… Hey, even SKYPE won’t run now!

    This will teach me to try BETA software!

    THE LEAST they should do, is label the BETA Version number so we could TRY to get ourselves out of the mess!.. CRAPIE Software!

  39. I downloaded the new beta version of yahoo IM… lost all my audibles. I tried to go back to an earlier version and the audibles are still missing… Thats the only problem I’ve had aside from picture sharing bugs.

  40. ZONEALARMS does not recognize the Yahoo beta. If I disable ZA, then Yahoo will load. Nonethless, I have lost the sound player in the process.

    Still cannot get back to an earlier version of Yahoo, so whatever the damage, it seems permanent (until some Yahoo upgrades it).

    Yahoo wants money to renew my expanded email…. I guess not, since they do not respond to calls for help. So much for Beta testing. 🙂

  42. Hello,
    I have loaded the new messanger a few times now, both the US version and the uk version, but I am a loss as to where the icon for joing a room is, It is no where to be seen, using the new messanger I can only chat to thoughts in my contacts , go to 360 etc, but no matter how much I widen messanger I dont have no icon to join a room. has any one else had this issue, is yahoo getting rid of the rooms.

    regards

    Kenny

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