The initial release of Yahoo! Messenger 9 beta which is labeled as version 9.0.0.797 is full of bugs. But it’s in beta, so users can’t complain much. And within 10 days, a new beta release build 9.0.0.907 has been released for free download. Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 features some lesser known enhancements such as full Unicode compliant to display almost all languages in IMs and status messages, remember status between sessions, elimination of duplicate contacts between Yahoo! and Windows Live ID, and ability to bold distinguish online contacts.
Yahoo! Messenger blog (dead link) lists the following improvements been done to the updated version:
- Viewing your contacts by their Yahoo! ID vs. their full name or nickname. Go to Messenger > Preferences > Appearance to set the preferences.
- New expanded contact list. If you feel this new look is too spacious, go to the Contacts menu and select “Compact List” to reduce the size of the Avatars and condense the height of the list overall.
- Message formatting in the IM window (the line break after the name rather that starting text on that first line).
- Fix installation problems for Windows Vista users.
- Games are missing from the IM window. If you love your Pool or Checkers, uninstall version 9.0 and return to Yahoo! Messenger 8.1.
- The LAUNCHcast plug-in, along with all the other plug-ins like Yahoo! 360, still work in 9.0! Just click the Plug-ins button near the bottom of your Messenger window to find them.
Again, download Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 from http://beta.messenger.yahoo.com/ (no longer available) will only give users a small bootstrapper setup file which will then further download and install complete setup files from Yahoo! server inside the small program itself. Users won’t see the full version setup file (although it exists in temporary folder which you have to dig), so it’s impossible to backup, redistribute, or run installation while offline.
So if you need a full version standalone installer for Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 beta, here’s the direct download links for all available localized language versions (downloads no longer available).
US English: ymsgr900_907_us.exe
America
Argentina: ymsgr900_907_ar.exe
Brazil: ymsgr900_907_br.exe
Canada: ymsgr900_907_ca.exe
Canada (Quebec French): ymsgr900_907_cf.exe
Yahoo! Telemundo (Latin America Spanish): ymsgr900_907_e1.exe
Mexico: ymsgr900_907_mx.exe
Europe
France: ymsgr900_907_fr.exe
Germany: ymsgr900_907_de.exe
Spain: ymsgr900_907_es.exe
UK & Ireland: ymsgr900_907_uk.exe
Oceanic
Australia & New Zealand: ymsgr900_907_au.exe
Asia
India (Hindi): ymsgr900_907_hi.exe
India (English): ymsgr900_907_in.exe
Indonesia: ymsgr900_907_id.exe
Hong Kong (Chinese): ymsgr900_907_hk.exe
Korea: ymsgr900_907_kr.exe
Malaysia: ymsgr900_907_my.exe
Philippines: ymsgr900_907_ph.exe
Singapore: ymsgr900_907_sg.exe
Thailand: ymsgr900_907_th.exe
Vietnam: ymsgr900_907_vn.exe
Update: New version Yahoo Messenger 9.0.0.922 beta.