Windows Live Messenger comes with many features and options for customizing the program according to your personal tastes. The good thing about this is that, as well as being able to choose from the elements provided by the program, you can also import new items such as winks or emoticons or customize them make instant messaging a more pleasant experience.

Windows Live Messenger's winks and emoticons

For example, you can add an unlimited number of emoticons to your copy of the program. Not only can you choose between those images offered by the program, but you can also import any photo that you have on your computer and set it to be the image to display. Lastly, Messenger allows you to download winks, which can also be used during chats. This last feature is perhaps the most fun since it displays, within the chat window, an animation to both you and the contact to whom you’re talking.

How to add an emoticon

Once Windows Live Messenger is running, open the “Tools” menu on the menu bar at the top of the screen. From the menu that opens, select “Emoticons…”. Now click the “Create…” button.

Now, select “Find Image…” and browse through your PC until you find the image that you want to set as an emoticon (an image that you already have, or one that you’ve downloaded from the Internet especially for this purpose). Next, enter the keyboard shortcut that will be used to trigger the emoticon. From now on, during a conversation, the emoticon in question will appear every time you type in this shortcut. Lastly, and optionally, give a name to the emoticon. Once you’ve gone through these three steps, click “OK” and the emoticon will automatically be created.

So now, when you’re chatting to a friend, the emoticon will appear alongside the others one that are shown when you click “Select an emoticon” in the chat window.

Windows Live Messenger also allows you to take an emoticon that another contact uses during a conversation and add it to your collection. To do so, right-click on the emoticon and, from the menu that will appear, select “Add…”. At this point, a window will open:

In the field labelled “Keyboard shortcut”, enter the code you want to use to trigger this emoticon, and enter its name in the bottom field. Now, after clicking “Add”, the new emoticon will be saved with the others.

How to change the window background

For this task, once again open the “Tools” menu and select the “Backgrounds…” option. Here you will see the available backgrounds that come with the program. You can either choose one of these or use the “Browse…” option to use any other image that you have stored on your computer. Once you’ve chosen the image that you like the most, click “Set” and the program will do the rest.

How to change the display picture

Once again, open the “Tools” menu and, this time, click “Change display picture”.

Here you can also choose between one of the images that comes with the program or, using the “Browse…” button, you can select any image stored on your PC. Once again, choose your favourite image, click “OK”, and this image will now be displayed in the chat window every time you have a conversation.

How to download winks

For this job, select the option “Select a wink” the next time you have a chat window open. This will open up a menu.

Now, click on one of the winks that appears in the upper part of this pop-up screen, under the heading “Featured winks”. Your chosen wink will be automatically downloaded and will appear alongside all the other winks that are already available to send to your contacts.

Windows Live Messenger is extremely easy to manipulate and set up. Almost all aspects can be customized to suit your needs. Take a pick and customize all the features according to your liking. As for the rest, continue chatting and share stuff with your friends.

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