Live Messenger closes 15th March 2013 – How to Merge your Skype and Live Messenger accounts
Windows Live Messenger is to be closed down on the 15th March 2013 in favour of Microsoft’s Skype platform, which it acquired in 2011.
Messenger has been around for 13 years and serves hundreds of millions of users World Wide. Only the service in China will remain after the March cut off date.
Unfortunately not all of the Live Messenger IM features we have become accustomed to will be present in Skype, such as the sending of images and video links (YouTube) conveniently shown with preview pane. Skype still has the clunky save file > go to file on PC > click to open procedure. Skype is just not streamlined for IM the way Live Messenger is, which raises the point of variety of alternative instant messenger services such as Facebook Messenger, Google Chat, iMessage, BBM, or Twitter. Will the old faithful remain faithful to Skype? This remains to be seen.
In the interim the move to Skype is happening, so in order to keep in touch with your contacts a merge is required and fortunately there is a built in feature to help you do this…
Merging Skype and Live Messenger Accounts
If you do not have a Skype account, install Skype and select to login with your Microsoft Live Messenger account, click you’re ‘new to Skype’ and away you go.
If you already have a Skype account follow these instructions:
- Logout of Skype if you are already logged in.
- On the sign in screen select to login with Microsoft Live Messenger and enter your Live Messenger login when prompted.
- On the next screen select ‘I have a Skype Account’
- Enter your Skype login when prompted.
- Click continue, now all your contacts should be in Skype.
For reference and support please visit the Skype community: http://community.skype.com/t5/Live-Messenger/Talk-to-Your-Messenger-Contacts-on-Skype/td-p/1183378
For some reason merged contacts appear in your contacts list twice, presumably this is something which will iron out in due course.
Sorry, Something went wrong. Login Error.
Some users have encountered problems with logging into Skype with their Windows login. A support thread for this is here: http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows/Sorry-Something-Went-Wrong-PLEASE-HELP/td-p/1232754/page/3
Ultimately the preferred fix is to delete the shared.xml file. If you can not find it using the directory shown in the link above, for Win7 users try C:USERS, [your main username], AppDATA, ROAMING, SKYPE