NeoWin has posted an article about Windows Messenger seems to be phasing itself out without any sort of official announcement.

Windows XP users have been waiting patiently for the Windows Messenger update since November when MSN 8 and MSN Messenger 5 was released to the public for Windows PC's other than (the no longer supported Windows 95 and) Windows XP. Windows XP users were greeted with update notifications only to later realize that MSN Messenger was installed next to Windows Messenger which was in many cases still active and present on the system. Little thought -it seems, had gone into the migration for Windows XP users. Was it to be a Windows Messenger update or not? The web-based newsgroups for Windows Messenger seemed to be split on this decision. Some saying Yes others saying No. No official response has been announced. Only that pop-up reminders and now disappearing tabs seem to be serving as an un-official decision from Redmond.

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