If you’ve checked out the Audibles menu lately in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, you may have come across some new residents. We’ve brought back the election audibles along with the ghoulish Halloween characters. And by popular demand, we’ve expanded the role of Emoticats by giving them their very own audibles.
Boo!
Send spooky greetings to your Messenger friends with the Halloween audibles. You can egg their IM window, send a black cat across their path, or scare them with a werewolf, ghost or ghastly scream.
Get out and vote Early voting has already started in some states and our election audibles are ready to help you make sure your friends make it to the polls by November 4th. All the biggies are there – Abraham Lincoln, Uncle Sam, and the Statue of Liberty. And although you can’t wear election gear to the polls, you can outfit your Avatar with apparel to support your party or candidate.
Meooowwww
We know you love the Emoticats IMV so we turned your furry friends into audibles. There’s a happy cat, a “vacationing” cat, and even an emoticat with a ‘tude.
To try them out, click the audibles icon ( ) above the text box in your IM window (Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 only). Click the More Audibles button on the right, then “See All Audibles”. Then select “Halloween”, “Election” or “Emoticats” from the list.
Some of you have left comments on the blog about not being able to download and install Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 on your Windows Vista PCs. Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 does run on Windows Vista and should work fine. To help, I thought I would describe the download and installation process, pointing out some of the trickier parts.
For best results, we recommend downloading and installing Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 while you’re logged in as Administrator on your Windows Vista computer (click here for instructions). This is not a requirement for installing 9.0 but it could help you avoid some obstacles during installation.
After you click the yellow “Download Now” button on the Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 download page, a small Windows dialog box will appear, asking if you want to Run, Save or Cancel the file download. Click Run. Another window will pop up asking if you want to run this software. Click the “Run” button again.
Here’s where it can get a little complicated… Windows Vista uses a security control called “User Account Controls” (UAC), to help ensure that it has your permission to add or run new software on your computer. A few moments after clicking the second “Run” button, your entire screen is dimmed out and a single Windows dialog box appears. The window says “A program needs your permission to continue” and lists the Yahoo! Suite Installer by Yahoo! Inc. Click the “Continue” button to get through this screen and continue with your installation. From there you should see the first screen of the 9.0 installer.
If you aren’t getting to the first screen of the Yahoo! Messenger installer, then your Vista User Account Controls may be interfering with your installation. Try turning off the User Account Control by going to your Control Panel, then selecting “User Accounts”. In the User Accounts window, click the “Turn User Account Control Panel on or off” link and follow the steps (you can always turn it back on after you finish installing Yahoo! Messenger 9.0). After turning it off, close all your internet browser windows, then reopen your browser and try installing Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 again.
After going through the installer screens, you’ll come to a final screen where you can click “Done” and launch Yahoo! Messenger. Note that once Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 launches and you sign in for the first time, you may also receive a Windows Firewall warning. This is your PC’s way of making sure it’s ok for Messenger to connect on your behalf. The firewall notice will have two buttons; click the “Unblock” button to continue. You’ll receive another UAC warning about the firewall; click the Continue button to close it. From there, you’ll be signed in and ready to chat. You won’t receive those warnings the next time you sign in.
Installing Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 will not be exactly the same for every Windows Vista user. Depending on your settings, you may or may not see the UAC and firewall windows. If you’re running into different issues, please describe them in as much detail as possible here on the blog (e.g. step-by-step so we can understand where you’re running into an issue).
As of today, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will no longer be available for download from the Yahoo! Messenger website. We have discontinued stand-alone releases of the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista application in order to focus on delivering one Windows experience that is optimized for all Windows users.
This decision will help us increase efficiencies on our team and deliver one consistent, full-featured product for all of our Windows users. Our application was based on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) platform which we will continue to experiment with and invest in. The knowledge we gathered from developing Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will also help us improve future versions of our Windows software.
We realize many of you have been with us from the first launch of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista and we want to thank you for trying it and providing great feedback with each new release.
If you’re using Yahoo! Messenger for Vista, you can continue to use it however we will not add any more features or provide product support. To enjoy full Yahoo! Messenger functionality including photo sharing, webcam and chat rooms, we recommend downloading and installing the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, which also works on Windows Vista: http://messenger.yahoo.com/download/win
Thanks again for your support of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista. We look forward to receiving your feedback on the new Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 (just go to the Help menu and choose “Send Feedback…”).
Yesterday Yahoo! launched a new beta profile service that will serve as a control panel for your identity, interests and connections across Yahoo!. This new profile experience has lots of great features that can help you stay connected with your friends and family. When you create a new profile page, you’ll be able to add photos, information about yourself and invite your friends to connect with you.
We realize that many Yahoo! Messenger users, especially those that use our chat rooms, were frequent users of the old profiles site. We hope that you’ll take the time to create a new profile to share with your Messenger friends. Just click the link below to start creating your new Yahoo! profile:
(Unlike the previous profiles site, going to http://profiles.yahoo.com/youryahooid will no longer take you to your original profile.)
One thing to note is that if you currently use multiple aliases in Yahoo! Messenger chat rooms, you will only have one main profile. You can, however, choose to merge your aliases with your main ID, which will allow users to search for you and view your full profile details. Please note that if you do not do this, users will not be able to see your profile details when they search for your alias. You must link your alias with your Yahoo! ID to enable users to see your profile.
Trying to get to someone’s profile from Yahoo! Messenger 9.0? To view a friend’s profile, click on them in your list and then click the “View Profile” link on their contact card. Or just right click on them and choose “View Profile” from the menu. To access your own profile, click on your display image the top of your main Yahoo! Messenger window. Then click the “My Profile” link on your contact card. If you’re not seeing these links in your Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, be sure you’re on the latest version (9.0.0.1912). If you are, try signing out of Messenger, quitting the application completely, then starting it again and signing in.
Did you know that purple is the official color of Yahoo!? We use it in our company logo and products, and if you visit our headquarters, you’ll find it colors our conference rooms, chairs, cubicle walls, carpet, buses, even the fire hydrants.
You may wonder why we love purple so much. It started out as an accident – one of our founders painted a wall in the first office and realized the discount color he’d purchased had a distinct purple tinge to it. Since then, it’s stuck. Now, as the color that represents us, purple inspires our creativity and ingenuity, and encourages us to live life with an exclamation point.
Right now we have a campaign going on around the theme “Start Wearing Purple”. It was inspired by the song of the same name by Gogol Bordello (see the video below). We thought it was the perfect irreverent take on the spirit of purple.
Yahoo! Messenger is also spreading the purple with some new audibles, an IMVironment and spiffy purple Avatar gear (audibles and IMV only available on Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 and 9.0).
To try out the six new audibles, click the audibles icon ( ) in your conversation window, click on “More Audibles”, select “See All Audibles” and then click on “Purple”. You’ll see some familiar faces that have something new (and purple) to say.
We also “purple-ized” the popular Falling Leaves IMV. This new “Purple Leaves” IMV can be found under the IMVironment menu in your IM window. Be sure to try out the Buzz button when you’re using it in your IM conversation. Try the Purple Leaves IMV now (you must be logged into Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 or 9.0).
To find out more about the “Start Wearing Purple” campaign, visit http://startwearingpurple.com. And check out the video below for the original “Start Wearing Purple” song that inspired it.
If you’ve checked out the Audibles menu lately in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, you may have come across some new residents. We’ve brought back the election audibles along with the ghoulish Halloween characters. And by popular demand, we’ve expanded the role of Emoticats by giving them their very own audibles.
Early voting has already started in some states and our election audibles are ready to help you make sure your friends make it to the polls by November 4th. All the biggies are there – Abraham Lincoln, Uncle Sam, and the Statue of Liberty. And although you can’t wear election gear to the polls, you can outfit your Avatar with apparel to support your party or candidate. 
) above the text box in your IM window (Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 only). Click the More Audibles button on the right, then “See All Audibles”. Then select “Halloween”, “Election” or “Emoticats” from the list.
As of today, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will no longer be available for download from the Yahoo! Messenger website. We have discontinued stand-alone releases of the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista application in order to focus on delivering one Windows experience that is optimized for all Windows users. 
Did you know that purple is the official color of Yahoo!? We use it in our company logo and products, and if you visit our headquarters, you’ll find it colors our conference rooms, chairs, cubicle walls, carpet, buses, even the fire hydrants.