How to Disable Drag-n-Drop Photo Sharing in WLM 2009

Filed under : Windows Live Messenger

"With Wave 3 of Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft introduced a new feature – Photo Sharing. This feature, when an image file is dropped into an active conversation window, starts a sharing activity allowing you to share photos with family and friends. Fun right?

The feature sucks though, because…

* It’s not clear the person you’re chatting with can see the image.
* The sender already knows what the image looks like (i.e. why do I want to see again, enlarged on my screen?)
* The not-downloaded, downloading, and downloaded (gray, semi-gray, and colored respectfully) progress indicator is too subtle for Mom and Dad users.
* The feature engulfs the entire window, making image-related chat impossible.

With Paul Thurrott and I working on the Windows 7 Secrets book, sending images to each other is a common (yet nightmare) task. To mitigate the issue, we simply turned to Live Mesh (or the occasional zip file) for transfer. Fed up with this solution, I sat down late Friday evening and starting peeling back the layers of Messenger..."

Continue reading : Photo Sharing feature in Live Messenger: Kill it dead

Posted @ withinwindows