I’m addicted to Windows Live MSN Messenger, I use it all day long, everyday. I’ve spent a lot of time researching how to improve my usage of it. New users to Windows Live MSN Messenger may not realize all the cool things this messenger offers over other messengers. For example, you can share your emoticons, not just simply use them, and be cool by yourself. Let’s say you post a “LOL” emoticon to your friend while chatting on Windows Live MSN Messenger. The user that you sent the emoticon to, can simply click on the emoticon and select the word “add” then pick a name for the emoticon and a shortcut for the emoticon to appear when a certain word is written. So the more people you speak to, the more emoticons you will get from sharing with friends. It becomes an endless wave of emoticon swapping. There is a setting though that should be set by default, but just in case it got turned off, I’ll cover where it is. In your Windows Live MSN Messenger contact list where your friends names are located, on the top menu go to “tools” then “options” and then the “Messages” section. To the right make sure the “Show Custom Emoticons” is checked. If it’s not, you will not see your friend’s new emoticons, only the default ones, which doesn’t make the chatting experience very enjoyable, at least in my humble opinion.
You don’t just have to grab your friend’s emoticons, you can create your own for Windows Live MSN Messenger. All you have to do is after you have found an image you feel would be cool to use as an emoticon, open a chat window with a friend. Click on the smile face on the toolbar between texts. Click the word “show all” to the right. Now you are in the Windows Live MSN Messenger emoticons menu, or at least you should be. Once in there, click on the word “Create” This will then bring up a new window that says “Add a custom emoticon” Click the “Find Image” button. Now you need to locate where you stored the image on your hard drive. Once you find it, you must give it a short cut. A short cut is whatever word or series of numbers you wish to use to bring up the emoticon when you type it. Then you can name it as well. Press “ok” and then “ok” again and you have just created your own new emoticon for Windows Live MSN Messenger.
The problem with creating your own Windows Live MSN Messenger emoticons is, not all images work in this process. Gifs are the best for creating Windows Live MSN Messenger emoticons, and size is usually guess work. There are several problems that come up though with gifs. Sometimes they may not convert well and will either be too small, too fast, choppy, or grainy. Some of these issues can be fixed if you have an image editor like Gimp. Simply open it up and add another layer to the image and save. This is for some reason what is required of the emoticons to make them operate correctly. So don’t be discouraged if you found the perfect image but it doesn’t appear correctly at first.
I have yet to find a limit on how many emoticons a person can have and use in their Windows Live MSN Messenger. But I can tell you, there is a limit of five per text window you send, meaning five per message. Hit return often if you use a lot of icons. And remember, it takes time for emoticons to download, so if you are on dial up or speaking to someone who is, you need to give them time to receive the emoticons.
