The main reason why WLM2011 was developped for Vista/Win7 only is because they wanted to use the new technology provided by Vista/Win7 which is not present in XP. This can be checked and read on many (un)official pages - and that's also the same reason why IE9 is developped for Vista/Win7, or any other new 'toy' for that matter: to take advantage of the new technology (it would be stupid not to).
Most of the stuff currently done in WLM2011 is not possible to do on XP because that simply doesn't have the required new architecture.
But yes, you're correct that they want people to use Vista/Win7 but that was certainly not the main reason behind the decision to only develop Messenger for Vista/Win7. There are far many and better ways to promote and push the new OS than using a (free) IM program.
quote:
Originally posted by Butcher_ss
The display name policy was changed so that there is better synchronisation and so on. What does that mean? People will be using WLM for more than just a single chat program. Using WLM for more purposes than just chat means that WLM will be used more if it provides more services. Correct? And what does WLM have? ADS. Meaning if more people use a product, then it means that more people will be seeing the Ads that the program has, hence the Ads just became more expensive>>More money.
err nope, I beg to differ... I think you made a wrong turn somewhere there... If that (revenue by ads) was the main reason, then it would have been more logic to also develop the same thing for XP since then even more people would see those new -way to big- ads instead of the smaller and less revenue providing things.
Either way, and no matter how you wanna look at it or how you explain the reason behind only developping for Vista/Win7, the direction the display names took hasn't got anything todo with what OS Messenger runs on, it even hasn't got anything to do with what version of Messenger you're using in the first place. Nor was money the driving factor behind it. That's completely different. The main reason was that they wanted to offer a more easier and consistant way of setting your display name across their different services, that's all. If Vista/Win7 wouldn't exist, they probably would also have made that (stupid imho) decision of the display names.