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MSN Toolbar

Earlier this week, we announced the release of the new MSN Toolbar. 

 

The MSN Toolbar aims to give consumers persistent access to valuable content and search options.  It allows you to preview headlines without leaving the web page you are on, keep up with breaking news, and easily accessing information you care about.  There are also new search tools to help you find exactly what you need.

 

 

One of my favorite features is the breaking news alerts.  It has a gleaming News button that lets you know when something happens.

 

And yeah, the cool part about the new MSN toolbar is that it is written in Silverlight.  The MSN team built on this runtime in order to enable an innovative UI that would be much harder to do with other platforms.

 

Here is a link to install the MSN Toolbar.

 

Namaste!

Posted: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:02 PM by Somasegar
Filed under:

Comments

Articles and demos for May 22, 2008 said:

PingBack from http://www.silverlightshow.net/news/Articles-and-demos-for-May-22-2008.aspx

# May 22, 2008 9:05 AM

Charles said:

Yes it is written in SIlverlight... v1! If you have v2 installed, it won't install!

# May 22, 2008 9:45 AM

anonymous said:

While the toolbar itself is nice, I wish Microsoft would really understand the pains of using multiple toolbars. I already have the Windows Live Toolbar and the Live Search Club toolbars installed which've slowed down IE7 to some extent. Now I wish to try the MSN one but I just don't want to hit a performance deadend. I have a modern Core 2 based CPU, decent GPU and 2 GB RAM yet IE is slow with 2 toolbars. I hope in the future MS consolidates the Windows Live Toolbar with the MSN one. It's really painful for every new IE window/tab to load.

# May 22, 2008 1:59 PM

Somasegar said:

Hi Charles,

There is a known issue with SL2 Beta1 which makes the MSN Toolbar not work with that.  That is being fixed in the upcoming SL2 Beta2 and you should be able run the MSN Toolbar with that.

-somasegar

# May 22, 2008 2:23 PM

Somasegar said:

We do recognize that Toolbars have flourished over the years :), and that many users have many different Toolbars.

The MSN Toolbar is optimized for users that mostly want rich Search and rich content at their finger tips, while the Windows Live Toolbar is optimized for users that are looking for tools that enhance the browsing experience and have rich connection to other Windows live applications (messenger, hotmail etc…).

We have had a lot of similar feedback from our customers, and we are actively working towards a single toolbar platform that will enable customers to get the best of both worlds from a single Toolbar. We also plan to release an SDK in the near future that will allow customers to build their own custom toolbar experiences.

-somasegar

# May 22, 2008 6:48 PM

Mikael S�derstr�m said:

Why didn�t they use WPF instead since the toolbar is a windows form (AFAIK)?

Mikael S�derstr�m

# May 23, 2008 1:46 AM

GajaK said:

I think you should have released the toolbar that works with v1 and v2.  This is the problem currently people face building RIA using Adobe Flex/Flash.  I would have thought knowing this pain MS would have built in features in Silverlight that does work on different versions.  When silverlight apps are compatible with multiple versions, that would be a game changer against adobe RIA suite...

# June 3, 2008 11:12 AM

lewis said:

Had msn toolbar for a week..No more.

A bloody thing kept moving to the upper right corner.

Just a plain nuisance.

No more headache.

# September 23, 2009 11:53 PM

lewis said:

......yes........the date of my comment is September 23,2009

# September 23, 2009 11:57 PM

Michelle said:

Does the new toolbar mess with connectivity?  I just got one and have problems connecting to the net all of a sudden!!!

# October 13, 2009 12:32 AM
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