After two years, our biggest update yet is FINALLY out. This might be our last big update for a while

Support for WLM 2009 is now out. Many improvements to existing services in previous MSN versions and the server core have also been introduced to fix various bugs that have been lingering around for some time and to better the user experience for everyone. We also introduced the text ad functionality back into MSN that we provisioned to display promotion from us and other projects we think are worth sharing.

For WLM 2009, if you plan to install with the prepatched installers make sure you uninstall any existing Windows Essentials installations > 2009 before installing as they will not function properly as a result of version conflict.

Alongside WLM 2009 support, we are also unveiling our new Group Chats feature. You can finally make your own proper, persistent group chat that won't require you to be online 24/7 to maintain (currently only WLM 2009 supports this feature).

For those who wants some refreshing Messenger Plus! action to go with their WLM 2009 experience, we've added Messenger Plus! 5.02 to the MSN Messenger Extras (note that you can still use version 4.83 for WLM 2009 if you really want to, but if you want to get the most out of your WLM 2009 experience with Messenger Plus!, we recommend you give 5.02 a try)

All new and previous pre-patched clients for MSN are now patched with our new Escargot Switcher component. If you have a client patched with our older patches and want to continue using Escargot without any unexpected issues later down the road, then we recommend you reinstall your client with our new pre-patched installers (or manually patch it if you feel comfortable doing that). This also means that all new pre-patched clients installed starting from now will only work on Windows XP and up for now due to the way the underlying patch solution is built.

Warning to MSN Messenger users: because we reverted our archaic msidcrl patch in these new patches, accounts saved from mid-2017 to 2020 on a patched client may not carry over and you will have to re-enter your credentials if that's the case, following installation of the new patches..

This site now has a proper login system. Currently this will allow you to manage your account's settings and your group chats. The ability to view your account's PUID also requires you to log in to your account settings. This news section also has an RSS feed now

Usernames are now a thing and are mandatory on all user accounts (previous accounts that have been created before 11/15/2020 have an auto-generated username; it was the best we could do). Keep this in mind when sharing your Escargot contact info from this point forward. You can find your username if you aren't aware of it by logging in to your account settings

Our service now supports offline messaging. To be able to utilize it in any fashion however you will have to reinstall your client with our new patches as the old ones break this functionality

A quick shoutout to Nerm from the community for making the lovely installer banner, by the way