The .NET Messenger Service (formerly MSN Messenger Service[1] and sometimes called Windows Live Messenger Service[2]) is an instant messaging and presence system developed by Microsoft in 1999 for use with its MSN Messenger software and used today by its current instant messaging clients, Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Messenger for Mac. Third-party clients also connect to the service. It communicates using the Microsoft Notification Protocol, a proprietary instant messaging protocol. The service allows anyone with a Windows Live ID to sign in and communicate in real time with other people who are signed in as well.
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Despite multiple name changes to the service and its client software over the years, the .NET Messenger Service is often referred to colloquially as "MSN", due to the history of MSN Messenger. The service itself was known as MSN Messenger Service from 1999 to 2001,[1] at which time, Microsoft changed its name to .NET Messenger Service and began offering clients that no longer carried the "MSN" name, such as the Windows Messenger client included with Windows XP, which was originally intended to be a streamlined version of MSN Messenger, free of advertisements and integrated into Windows.[3]
Nevertheless, the company continued to offer more upgrades to MSN Messenger until the end of 2005, when all previous versions of MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger were superseded by a new program, Windows Live Messenger, as part of Microsoft's launch of its Windows Live online services.
Currently, the official name for the service remains .NET Messenger Service, as indicated on its official network status web page,[4] though Microsoft rarely uses the name to promote the service. Because the main client used to access the service is called Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft has recently started referring to the entire service as the Windows Live Messenger Service in its support documentation.[2]
The service can integrate with the Windows operating system, automatically and simultaneously signing into the network as the user logs into their Windows account. Organizations can also integrate their Microsoft Office Communications Server and Active Directory with the service.
In December 2011, Microsoft released an XMPP interface to the .NET Messenger Service.[5]
Microsoft offers the following instant messaging clients that connect to the .NET Messenger Service:
Additionally, these third-party clients and others can access the .NET Messenger Service:
Windows NT and newer operating systems from Microsoft included a system notification service called Messenger service, which was intended for use within workgroups, but eventually became used maliciously to present pop-up advertisements to users. This service, although it has a similar name, is not related in any way to the .NET Messenger Service or the Windows Messenger instant messaging client. It became disabled by default with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and was removed completely in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
Despite its name, the .NET Messenger Service is not in any way related to the Microsoft .NET Framework development platform. Neither the official clients nor the protocol itself is tied to the .NET Framework. The official clients themselves have verified this information. The name was invented as part of the Microsoft .NET strategy that did not go as expected.
The .NET Messenger Service has been criticized for the use of the Microsoft Notification Protocol, which in comparison to many other modern instant messaging protocols, such as XMPP, does not provide any encryption. This makes wiretapping personal conversations in .NET Messenger a trivial task, especially in unencrypted public Wi-Fi networks.
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