Sign-in options for Windows Live Messenger
As explained in our "Sign in to Windows Live Messenger" tutorial, you have the option of making it remember your credentials, so that you don't have to manually login every time you launch your favorite instant messaging client. But as you'll learn in this tutorial, there are quite a few other settings you can configure that affect not only your own login, but also the behavior of Messenger when your friends sign in (a couple of these options were covered in "Disable notifications when signed in to Messenger" - namely, preventing Messenger from notifying you when friends or favorite friends login themselves.
Customize what Messenger does when you sign in or launch the program
Open the main Windows Live Messenger window, and click on your name (top right corner).
- Select "More options" at the bottom of the menu, and the Options dialog will open.
- In the "Personal" tab, automatically selected on the left, you can change your "display" name by clicking on "Edit name" - this is the name others will see when you sign into Messenger, and the name that will appear when you send messages from your Hotmail account.
- Select the "Sign in" tab on the left: if the "Start Messenger when I log on to my computer" checkbox is checked (it is by default), Windows will automatically launch the program. Since you may not always want to appear online to others, you can disable this option, and let yourself manually launch Messenger when you are ready. If you uncheck the "Open the main window when Messenger signs in", only an icon will appear in the system tray ("notification area"), near the system clock - and you'll need to double-click on it to open Messenger:
The "Sign in at more than one place" setting is discussed in details in "Messenger Sign in". - The "Notifications" options are covered in depth in "Disable Messenger notifications".
- Click "Sounds" on the left, and expand the "Contact sign in" button: Messenger will by default play the sound labeled "Default" (click on the play button to preview). To change that sound, select another one from the list, and Messenger will play it when one of your contacts decides to login to their copy of Messenger. (Click "Mute all sounds" to keep the program silent.)
- Finally, select the "Privacy" tab on the left:
• The "Ask for my password when I go to Hotmail and other websites that require a Windows Live ID" checkbox is unchecked by default (follows your current login settings). If you check it, Internet Explorer will always ask for your username (Hotmail email address) and/or password when a page uses Windows Live for authentication.
• The "Open Messenger when I open a link to a website that tries to interact with Messenger" checkbox is checked by default: any site that uses Microsoft's "Passport" login mechanism can check your current login status, for example, but cannot access your personal data. One such site is Hotmail, which has several options to tightly integrate with Messenger.
These are the Sign-in-related options you can configure for Windows Live Messenger - click on the "OK" button (bottom right) to save and apply them. Note that these options only affect the copy of Messenger you happen to be using. If you have Messenger installed on another computer, it will retain its current settings, so you'll have to manually customize them to make them match if you so desire.
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