Well basically the title says it all.

No. They only change its appearance

I even think they make Messenger slower. No matter how little resources you change or how much stuff you hide.

The fact is that Plus! needs to be loaded in the process, which already is more stuff running than original. On top of that Plus! intercepts (or whatever it does) the resource loading. All this makes WLM slower than normal (although you wouldn't notice the difference).

... I think

As a general rule, skins do not make any speed difference. The do not slow down Messenger at all, not even a tiny bit, due to the way they are designed (load-when-needed system, no extra conversion in the middle, ...). The only thing you may notice is a second or maybe two of extra loading time when Messenger is started, but after that, it's a smooth ride.

As for making Messenger faster, I'd say no. The default interface of Messenger is pretty simple and does not make extensive use of big bitmaps. Removing a couple of buttons won't change anything in the loading time, you may speed things up a little bit in the contact list depending on what you do to the contact entries but even that, I doubt. The UI system of Messenger is pretty clever and very well done in my opinion, it's completely detached from the logic, that's why we can skin it and that's also why changing the layout of the window won't affect performances.

Ok. Thanks! Patchou, basilis and cookie.

I would say this depends from skin to skin. If your skin is using huge images or a lot of semi-transparent stuff, it may take longer for Windows Live Messenger to paint than just white background and some text. But I think you cannot notice the difference because it's too small (like they said), unless you have a really heavy skin or errors in your XML.

When the resources are getting replaced, when Messenger starts, it takes a while longer, because Plus! has to load itself, the skin, parse the XML, and replace the resources after that. 1-2 seconds isn't slow, considering that multiple XML files are parsed and a lot of other stuff is done.

To sum up, a skin could slow down Messenger if you're doing something wrong, but it won't get Messenger any faster (of course it will, but you won't be able to notice it because the difference is tiny).

hiding the ad banner i think speeds it up at least a little because it doesn't have to load an annoying little flash thing

I will delete the ad I hate it. Especially the mouse-over if there a default skin going about with the ad-removed? (i know there no on the DB)

?

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Originally posted by Shiny Rabbit
hiding the ad banner i think speeds it up at least a little because it doesn't have to load an annoying little flash thing

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Originally posted by deAd

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Originally posted by Shiny Rabbit
hiding the ad banner i think speeds it up at least a little because it doesn't have to load an annoying little flash thing

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I believe Messenger continues to load the ad in the background, but you just don't see it.

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Originally posted by john-t

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Originally posted by deAd

quote:

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Originally posted by Shiny Rabbit
hiding the ad banner i think speeds it up at least a little because it doesn't have to load an annoying little flash thing

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I believe Messenger continues to load the ad in the background, but you just don't see it.

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What if you use a patch?

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Anyway, if you want a skin that removes the ads, check out the link in my signature. It's still a work in progress, with very irregular updates, but should help you out.

Does it change the look of messenger in any way?

Clicky

Oh I thought it was a skin skin too I'll download it, it looks great i might  put it in my sig? Ok?

well, it is a skin

The plus patch could use an update

this patch can be useful for people who don't want skins, but want to patch the messenger without change the executable