The Shortcut - Windows Live Messenger

The Shortcut - Windows Live Messenger is a handy little widget made for the Yahoo! Widget Engine. It creates a shortcut to Windows Live Messenger (WLM), which is great if you already have WLM installed on your computer.

What You Need to Know

Now, here's the thing: both the Yahoo! Widget Engine and Windows Live Messenger projects have been around for a while and are no longer being updated. WLM has even moved over to Skype. But don’t worry, they still work just fine!

Easy Setup

Getting this tiny widget into your Yahoo! dock is super easy. All you need to do is click on the small panel that shows the Windows Live Messenger logo, and bam! It opens up right away.

Customize Your Experience

If clicking doesn’t do the trick, you can check out the configuration panel. This lets you change where it looks for WLM in case it’s not in the usual spot. Pretty neat, right?

File Launching Made Simple

The Shortcut isn’t just limited to launching Windows Live Messenger; it can also point to any .exe file or other types of files. Want quick access to a favorite document or photo? You can set that up too! However, there are no options to customize things like changing the logo image.

Widget Features

The cool part about using Yahoo! Widget Engine is that it offers some neat configuration options for all its widgets. You can choose how visible your widget is by setting its window level—normal, on top of everything else, or behind other windows. Plus, you can disable mouse interactions and prevent dragging around if needed.