Yahoo optimizes Messenger for Vista

Yahoo Messenger for Vista will be previewed Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will be launched in public beta during the second quarter. It offers the ability to resize the contacts window and to start a chat without opening a chat window, easy access to a color wheel to change the background color, and the ability to make photos full-screen size when sharing them. Users can also combine multiple chat sessions into one window with multiple tabs and can drag and drop a contact onto the desktop for separate viewing.

Another new feature is the automatic creation of contact groups based on Yahoo network affinity groups of which users may be members. For instance, a user who is in the Yahoo Fantasy Football group can see other group contacts in the Messenger window or separate them out into a new window.

Yahoo Messenger for Vista also leverages the desktop search in Vista to let the user search for photos stored on the computer, and it includes new animated emoticons.