Shoutbox

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Originally posted by DrPizza
But I have hundreds of friends. It's ridiculous for Microsoft to make such an upgrade without at the very least making it compulsory. There's no obvious indication that my version is different: it just doesn't work properly.

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The obvious indication that your version is different is the different version number, the fact that you upgraded and the lack of "Send webcam" feature.

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Originally posted by DrPizza

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Originally posted by djdannyp

You aren't "forced" to use video calls

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Er, yes, you are. There is no other option.

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Don't take quotations out of context.....you aren't forced to use TWO WAY video calling as you can easily disable your webcam as I suggested.  If you're really that paranoid about not wanting people to see you whilst seeing them (which is a little backwards if you have a webcam) then it won't be that much of an issue to do as I suggested, or just turn your camera the other way (if it's a free standing camera).  And no, it isn't a joke...you're the one asking for a way to stop people seeing your webcam using the current system, I'm just giving it to you.  If you don't like the solution, don't use video chats.

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Originally posted by DrPizza
Audio isn't a benefit. I virtually never want audio.

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You can't deny that having audio makes it a better feature, whether you use it or not.  To be honest, you can complain as much as you want, it won't change anything.  One sided webcamming has been removed in favour of higher quality video chats, taking advantage of higher quality webcams and broadband than were available many years ago.  The best thing you can do is just get used to the new version and take the advice you've been given, because it's the best you'll get

You spread such bollocks djdannyp.

It's a shit decision and one that can not be backed up no matter how much fanboyism you pull out of your arse. The removal of single sided webcam conversations and the inclusion of forced video chat is in no way a step forward and not something that can be brushed away or justified with a callous "get used to it" attitude.

I think you'll find "the best thing you can do" is to register a complaint with Microsoft, and hope that by release this feature has been re-added into the product. If not, then your best option is not to simply upgrade - as djdannyp will tell you, spouting his usual "you must always upgrade to the latest version!!!1111!!!!11" nonsense - but rather to remain on 9.0, or better yet 8.5 which are both far superior clients currently.

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Originally posted by djdannyp

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Originally posted by DrPizza
But I have hundreds of friends. It's ridiculous for Microsoft to make such an upgrade without at the very least making it compulsory. There's no obvious indication that my version is different: it just doesn't work properly.

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The obvious indication that your version is different is the different version number, the fact that you upgraded and the lack of "Send webcam" feature.

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That isn't obvious at all. I was setting up a new machine, downloaded the installer as normal, and it just installed something that was different and contained feature regressions, with no indication of having done so.

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Don't take quotations out of context.....you aren't forced to use TWO WAY video calling as you can easily disable your webcam as I suggested.  If you're really that paranoid about not wanting people to see you whilst seeing them (which is a little backwards if you have a webcam) then it won't be that much of an issue to do as I suggested, or just turn your camera the other way (if it's a free standing camera).  And no, it isn't a joke...you're the one asking for a way to stop people seeing your webcam using the current system, I'm just giving it to you.  If you don't like the solution, don't use video chats.

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Disabling my camera--which disables it for all my contacts--is not as good as selective enablement.

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You can't deny that having audio makes it a better feature, whether you use it or not.

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Er, yes, I can. Having to explicitly disable audio is worse than just not having audio.

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To be honest, you can complain as much as you want, it won't change anything.  One sided webcamming has been removed in favour of higher quality video chats, taking advantage of higher quality webcams and broadband than were available many years ago.  The best thing you can do is just get used to the new version and take the advice you've been given, because it's the best you'll get

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This is bollocks. The implication here is that Microsoft were somehow forced to remove the feature just to improve video calls. That is a load of crap.

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Originally posted by vaccination
You spread such bollocks djdannyp.

It's a shit decision and one that can not be backed up no matter how much fanboyism you pull out of your arse. The removal of single sided webcam conversations and the inclusion of forced video chat is in no way a step forward and not something that can be brushed away or justified with a callous "get used to it" attitude.

I think you'll find "the best thing you can do" is to register a complaint with Microsoft, and hope that by release this feature has been re-added into the product. If not, then your best option is not to simply upgrade - as djdannyp will tell you, spouting his usual "you must always upgrade to the latest version!!!1111!!!!11" nonsense - but rather to remain on 9.0, or better yet 8.5 which are both far superior clients currently.

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Think what you want, but encouraging people to stick with old versions just ends up causing problems.  My "get used to it" attitude is a realistic one.  You can complain all you like and do whatever you want, but it won't change, so getting used to it is the best thing to do.

It's nothing to do with "fanboyism", I'd be saying the same thing whether I used/liked the product or not.

I'm not spreading any bollocks, you should always upgrade to the latest versions of everything and encouraging people to perform "hacks" and whatever in order to stay on older versions can cause other problems which are totally unnecessary.

The reason I say these things is because the same things happen every year.  As I've posted elsewhere, anything changed in a Microsoft product is automatically "shit, I want the old one that was SOOOO superiod", whereas anything new in an Apple product is always "OMG, new features are so cool"......there's no parity.

Is your memory so short that you can't remember just as many people complaining about changing from WLM 8.5 to WLM 2009?  Moaning how crap it is an saying they can never use it......those same people are the ones now singing its praises and slagging off the new one.....and you can guarantee that the same people will be doing exactly the same thing in a couple of years time.

@DrPizza, you can only have one video-call at a time....so disabling your camera doesn't disable it for all your contacts, it just disables it for whichever one you're video calling with at that moment.

At the end of the day, I'm just encouraging people to do the sensible thing, as we should be doing.  What you do personally is your own choice, but you shouldn't be advising other people to do it

What problems?


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You are wrong. All the people who said WLM9 was shit, still think it's shit, many are still using 8.5. People are not saying 9 is amazing and 10 is shit, they're saying 10 is even worse than 9.


As a side note, Apple are a terrible company. Apple gets praised for pathetic additions to their software/hardware which are usually basic standards for all other vendors. And when Apple fuck things up, they spout some bullshit (refer to the recent signal issue & official response which was lolworthy). Unfortunately most people who buy Apple products are morons or haven't had the effects of clever marketing "ooooh shiny" syndrome wear off yet. Refer to Season 6, Episode 3 of Futurama

Why you would even bring up Apple/Microsoft into a simple discussion about the stupidity of removing features from an application astonishes me. Perhaps it's because your opinion is baseless.

Removing features which are useful is in no way justifiable, no matter what contorted jibberish you throw at it. Downgrading/staying on the current version works, and has no ramifications, so stop telling people to update.


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Originally posted by djdannyp
Think what you want, but encouraging people to stick with old versions just ends up causing problems.

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Yes, because im constantly having problems with 8.5....

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Originally posted by djdannyp
My "get used to it" attitude is a realistic one.  You can complain all you like and do whatever you want, but it won't change, so getting used to it is the best thing to do.

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Didn't realise you worked at Microsoft, then again, they do tend to hire ignorant and stubborn people.

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Originally posted by djdannyp
I'm not spreading any bollocks, you should always upgrade to the latest versions of everything and encouraging people to perform "hacks" and whatever in order to stay on older versions can cause other problems which are totally unnecessary.

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Again, what problems? The webcam feature was broken when they released 2009, where it worked perfectly fine in 8.5, and still does, yet theres still ongoing issues with it in 9, maybe thats why they dropped it, they just can't be fucked to fix it.

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Originally posted by djdannyp
@DrPizza, you can only have one video-call at a time....so disabling your camera doesn't disable it for all your contacts, it just disables it for whichever one you're video calling with at that moment.

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Yet another backwards step, with one way video you could send cam and receive cam to many people at once...

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Originally posted by djdannyp
At the end of the day, I'm just encouraging people to do the sensible thing, as we should be doing.  What you do personally is your own choice, but you shouldn't be advising other people to do it

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No you're not, you're telling them to accept whatever gets thrown at them and not stand up for their own ideas/needs.

As far as I know, high quality video calls is in the Wave 4 beta only, so I think it was unnecessary to take the 'one way webcam' out of this version. I wouldn't care for this change if it allowed me to cam with more than one person at once, but it doesn't. It's a stupid and unnecessary change. I'd downgrade but it would be pointless as the majority of people have the latest version and one way doesn't work for them.

No point complaining here about it guys, we can't do anything about it.

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Originally posted by DrPizza

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Originally posted by djdannyp
The obvious indication that your version is different is the different version number, the fact that you upgraded and the lack of "Send webcam" feature.

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That isn't obvious at all. I was setting up a new machine, downloaded the installer as normal, and it just installed something that was different and contained feature regressions, with no indication of having done so.

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The version number is the obvious indication in this case though!

(unfortunatly) no program can magically know what version you had installed on a different machine. It is therefor logical that you, by yourself, either:
a) Check the version number of the installer you're about to download
b) Check the download page for any news on the version which you're about to download
c) Check the version number after you've installed the package.

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Originally posted by DrPizza
Disabling my camera--which disables it for all my contacts--is not as good as selective enablement.

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That's a somewhat justified complaint shared by many people (in regards to the need to first disable your webcam in order to have an one-direction Video Call). If you want to fix this, the only thing you can do about that is reporting the issue to MS (via Windows Live Solution Center for example), and follow djdannyp's advise in the main time...

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Originally posted by DrPizza

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Originally posted by djdannyp
You can't deny that having audio makes it a better feature, whether you use it or not.

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Er, yes, I can. Having to explicitly disable audio is worse than just not having audio.

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That is a pure objective and personal opinion. In fact, statistics show that most people prefer audio when they do a video call (no matter if it is done in directional or bidirectional). So yes, having audio is better in the general sense. And to mute it it is generally just a flick of a button...

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Originally posted by DrPizza

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Originally posted by djdannyp
To be honest, you can complain as much as you want, it won't change anything.  One sided webcamming has been removed in favour of higher quality video chats, taking advantage of higher quality webcams and broadband than were available many years ago.  The best thing you can do is just get used to the new version and take the advice you've been given, because it's the best you'll get

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This is bollocks. The implication here is that Microsoft were somehow forced to remove the feature just to improve video calls. That is a load of crap.

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As a matter of fact this is not bullocks or crap. There is truth in it. The Webcam feature did slow down the progress of the video feature. This because both partially used the same code base, and having the Webcam feature there didn't only confused most people (diff. between Webcam and Video) it also made that the video call couldn't be developped further taking advantage of new advanced features in the new OSs. This has been explained on official MS weblogs.

Now, in theory they could have seperated the two and kept the Webcam feature while developping the Video Call feature further. But this would require extra development resources because then you would have to maintain two almost identical features. And all that for a feature which is incompatible with other services and which would soonish be depricted anyways. These resources can far better be invested in developping or fixing other (new) features. So, from a bussiness and coding standpoint this decision was justified. The only thing they did "wrong" was that by combining these two almost indentical features, they also dropped the one-side video chat possebility.

So, all they need to do next is making it possible to initiate a one way Video Call again (in an more easy way - because as said before, it is still quite possible to do it).

Ranting about it will not help, at least not when you do it on unofficial forums. So, all I can suggest is going towards Windows Live Solutions Center and post feedback about it.

Note: believe it or not, but when Microsoft "drops" features they don't do it just for the fun of it (although I personally have that impression too sometimes). They base such decisions on demographics and user statistics. So it might be very possible that 10000 people realy liked using the one-sided Webcam feature. But on the other hand it might be well possible that like 2mil. other people never touched it or always used the Video Call feature...

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[OFF TOPIC]

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Originally posted by vaccination
All the people who said WLM9 was shit, still think it's shit, many are still using 8.5.

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You can not use 8.5 anymore (without hacks) since a while.
[/OFF TOPIC]

If it was removed to give high quality video, whats stopping them having it in single webcams

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Originally posted by Chrissy
If it was removed to give high quality video, whats stopping them having it in single webcams

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prioritation?

For example of what could have happened: only a very small number of people actually used one-way video/web chats, so they didn't invest in it because there were other far bigger things to deal with with the available resources they had (eg: the whole social experience stuff).