I realized that I have been unknowingly paying for MSN for years! Fortunately for me, when I mentioned this fact to Microsoft tech support, they offered to refund me completely - only they accidentally sent me $5000 instead of the $500 I was supposed to get! Seems it was actually my fault though, because I typed in an extra 0 on accident. It’s OK though; nobody lost their job, but I did have to run down to Walmart and buy a bunch of Google Play gift cards and read the numbers to the Microsoft rep over the phone.
There's a great sitcom here, talented young dev with stars in their eyes joins innovation giant Microsoft and is promptly assigned to the MSN Premium dev team....
I remember when MSN Explorer was the Hot New Thing in the company. A group of IE 5 devs moved over to MSN to take this on. I stayed on to do IE 6. That was the dead-end route as it turns out, since IE went into a dormant state after IE 6 shipped.
@@marct.g.5468 Hey I was trying to be civil to this three ring circus of a program. I’ve seen icons in this interface that go all the way back to XP then there’s some in here that I’ve seen in Windows 7 some I’ve seen in windows eight and some I’ve seen in windows 8.1 and that’s it. Then some of the interface design goes right back to XP. Some of the internal webpages in the browser Remind me of Microsoft’s web 1.5 design language. Sort of like what they had back in the days of XP when you would go and update your computer and it opened up Internet explorer to that weird update website yeah you know the one I’m talking about.
I worked for msn premium as a tech support agent when it launched over 12 years ago. I worked there for 5 years. It’s amazing how much it hasn’t changed.
It's amazing it still exists. What's the point of paying for things you can get for free? I mean, except for an IE-like browser (I hope Netscape doesn't have paying customers too...).
@@xmine08 You have a point. On the other hand, it's a bit of a paradox: if they used it back then, that makes them rather early adopters of the internet. If they still use it now, that makes them super-late adopters of the modern-day internet (or, actually, not-yet-adopters of it).
Me too like i did not really pirate in some time and when i did to a game only on epic games store (shitty games which i hate) i was scared first. I tought russian (or chinese who tf knows) repackers hacked me. lol.
Given that Microsoft has a monopoly on government systems (including being a massive military corporation for this reason), it’s probably a government agency. Because, you know, makes more sense continuing to give the Microsoft monopoly billions in tax dollars instead of just creating an open source OS for government use that would save a lot more money would just make too much sense.
Definitely there's money involved. There's no way Microsoft wouldn't terminate this if it was a loss. Unless a bunch of guys in the basement are keeping this alive for fun (ala The IT Crowd).
Also still supports IE under the table.. Which has maybe a 6% market share and that might even be generous... But Windows 7 is old and irrelevant, you don't need it. Lol.
It could also be for people living in areas without good Internet infrastructure. My neighborhood didn’t have anything better than 700kbps DSL until around 2014, and there are places in my state that still don’t even have anything better than 56kbps dial-up.
I mean... my grandma was in her 60's when she got a computer and MSN, by the time dial up stopped being a thing and she stopped needing MSN she was in her 70's. Any attempt to change her computer routine over the years has been met with stiff resistance, any attempt to get her to change or update programs is met with "well this works for me", any time I can get past that and actually get her to install something to try she literally her repair person that's somehow kept her Dell from 2005 alive all these years make a housecall a couple days later just to remove the program. A few years ago I just stopped trying and suggesting things and just keep her network up.
@@alexander1989x meh, Winamp is at least still incredibly useful as an audio player/visualizer even if other software has surpassed it in development, whereas there really is no conceivable reason anyone should be using MSN Explorer in 2021 hahaha
Not gonna lie, I feel really nostalgic about these all-in-one internet suites. Those were the early days of the internet. Things have moved on so far from things like this.
What I gather here is that it's for the older folks that don't know where to get all these things individually. I mean that would be the reason it's not discontinued. Having it all laid out in one program is essentially worth the money to them.
This is exactly what it is for. Im the ITmanager for a law office full of late gen x'ers and boomers and I always have to stop them from signing up or downloading shit like this.
My grandfather, since the late 90s had MSN Premium and it was only gotten rid of last year, on his old account that was closed since 2017 after clicking a malicious link to grab his info. I didn't even know they had memberships, let alone still keeping them around. It took us two days to realize how much money he's wasted for about two decades.
Dang. Maybe once he's acclimated with open-source software for his browsing habits, convince him to try out an open-source OS and move on from Windows? You can make MATE look like a solid representation of old Windows, there's also Ubuntu Kylin UI which _feels_ a bit like WIndows 10, and there's KDE 5 which _looks_ a lot like Windows 10. btw I use -Arch- Manjaro.
@@bluephreakr as an open source and Linux user myself I myself simply can't recommend it anyway.. it's already bad enough I have to keep going to his house for the stupidest of reasons. honestly OS X would be a better option for him as it's more idiot proof in my experience but then again, "I AIN'T BUYING NO FUCKIN MAC!!".
@@bluephreakr It's pretty difficult for old people to learn too newer something. Like you could learn any language easily when you were kid, Is it as easy today? No Keep windows, He may not understand command line. Just get him an open source browser and if you have any other subscriptions, replace with open source alternatives. Or like he made 1000+ documents with ms office, Buy a perpetual 2019 license.
Wonder how that's possible, that it said his name in human voice. What if I have an uncommon name? I guess it's just pre-recorded audio, and they only record common names.
Lol I helped my neighbor set up a new computer a week or 2 ago and he was subscribed to either MSN gold or MSN premium. Was shocked that it was actually still a thing
It's all "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Nothings really gotten _worse_ with MSN Premium, so people keep buying it unaware that all of these things are now available for free.
I actually had this feature and browser for years until Verizon stopped paying for the premium subscription when they sold their dsl customers to frontier. My dad was actually really upset because he had 20 years worth of bookmarks and emails that didn’t not migrate when frontier took over. Oh the memories.
Skeuomorphic angled icons Skeuomorphic flat icons Windows 8 Metro monochrome icons with colored square Windows 8 Metro colored icons with no square Windows 10 fluent icon when it opens Outlook Windows Vista gradient background My brain can't handle this
Im glad it has something other than boring flat design. Also, flat isn't modern it originally was a thing in the 80s, and the more recent second coming is 9 years old already.
The mail UI is exactly the same as it was in the XP MSN Explorer. The swoopy part in the top right is the design language that MSN used for everything until Live became a thing.
That is with a lot of old programs. That was the design language back then, you would make the interface as comfortable as possible to make it easier for users to use a computer. AOL has a similar looking interface.
The design language, having grown up using it, was absolutely designed to feel that way. The color choices were very deliberately chosen to evoke calm, the reflection Ed were to evoke water, it was all meant to fade into the background of what you were doing, feel inviting, but could also be customized heavily for those that wanted it and knew how.
When in see those interfaces, it raises my heartbeat a little cos all I remember is things breaking and not working lol. Although it seems comfortable, things were really unstable back then. Current interface just works and is comfort for me
@@bengaligangsta I actually find current OS less stable comparatively. I have three laptops, one from 2003, one from 2007, and one from 2010. The 2003 laptop, the cheapest of the three (about $300 iirc), has been the most stable through the years and was an absolute workhorse. My current laptop that was made in 2016 and has win 10 is the least stable of them all, to the point I spend 90% if my time on my tablet and $199 phone (this is a relatively new one that I switched to last October. Previously I was using a phone made in 2014 that I only switched from because apps were no longer working on that version of Android).
I do on site tech support from time to time, and it's pretty much exclusively elderly people with varying degrees of technological ineptitude, and I can see the appeal of MSN Premium to those types of people. It has pretty much everything that kind of user would use in one easy to use program. The fact that UI looks so old I think is likely intentional and not just Microsoft not bothering to update it. Any kind of change, no matter how seemingly minor could seriously disrupt someone who is not able to do much on a computer without someone spending time and showing them in detail how everything works (and even then they often need to take extensive notes).
It's basically MSN's version of AOL's dialup shell. I could see someone getting this for their mother or father who's getting up there in years and not really tech savvy. It keeps them in a very safe sandbox for the most part, and it's nostalgic. Now, would I or any of my tech savvy family or friends use it? Oh, heck no! But as long as it doesn't really run scripts off strange websites, locks the user into a sandbox, and doesn't allow add-ons, I'd say it's perfectly fine for those folks who need a little helping hand.
I imagine the people that still work on this are in an old office with tubing sticking out of the walls, a bit of mold on some corners, furniture that doesnt match, fluorescent lighting that buzzes, in the basement of one of the Microsoft buildings
@Celly Milton Yep, I remember that! MSN was the default homepage on most versions of Internet Explorer, albeit through a Microsoft redirect link that then redirected to the MSN website for the country the user was connected to the Internet in.
Oh, wow. I haven't seen MSN in years. I did tech support for them. I worked for Sykes Inc who was/is a tech support outsource company. We did support for Gateway computers and MSN internet. I took 60 calls a day helping people get online through MSN. This was 2002-ish. I remember the timeframe because September 11 happened while I was in training for that job. I was hired for Gateway and did that for over a year. Then I moved over to MSN. I had no idea it was still being sold. I have photos of me inside that call center with MSN logos on the walls. lol man. I haven't thought about that place in so long. These screens look a lot like the version I supported. Of course, it's been 20 years since I've seen it but it looks very similar. There was this key combination you could do on the sign in screen that would take you to a hidden menu with some advanced settings. I think it was something like CTRIL+SHIFT+F12 or something like that. I remember doing that a lot with customers to configure their modem. By the way, I also did tech support for AOL from 1999 to early 2001. Yes. I'm old. I actually worked for AOL, though. That wasn't an outsourced job. I was there for the Time Warner merger. But I was commuting 3 hours a day to get to the AOL building. The Sykes call center opened 15 minutes from my house and I changed jobs. I regretted it but I also couldn't go back to commuting. Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane.
They seriously need to update the IE 11 back end or this app will be essentially vapour ware in the future. As IE11's lifespan is well... mainstream support for it ended in 2020 and IE11's methods of handling JavaScript isn't really compatible with modern web browsers. Meaning web designers are looking for any excuse to drop support.
this feels like malware/bloatware. i can't believe it's an official MS product. On the other hand, I think it's so cute and cool. I love all the widgets and fun tab things. I kind of want to try it
15:42 I believe that it just uses the version of IE that is installed on your system, which is IE11 on Windows 10. It's likely using a WebView control (or similar), which is hooked up to the IE engine on the system, rather than having the entire IE engine inside the MSN Explorer program.
You just KNOW there's like, one intern at Microsoft and this is his whole job. Maintaining MSN Explorer. No one knows why it still exists. Most people DON'T know that it still exists, and yet, it can't die for some reason
It doesn't look like it's been maintained in a long time, except just to keep it from breaking on new Windows revisions. It does seem to me that if this program still has a following, why not just offer it as a standalone free download at this point? It's a bit chintzy to charge people $10 a month for something that hasn't had a meaningful update since George W. Bush was President.
Better than Google who pit teams against each other like Inbox vs Gmail, then just straight up delete Inbox. Play Music vs TH-cam Music, then just straight up delete Play Music. This week they just dropped Google Assistant DRIVING MODE. RIP Android Auto, was nice knowing you.
MSN Explorer was the perfect introduction to computers for my mom, twenty years ago. I didn't know that they'd been updating it at all since then, but I guess they kept pace up through IE 11. I would think adapting it to Edge would exceed its value, though. I doubt this service will continue because of this, but who knows?
I work for a bank and I still get calls from older card members that are paying for MSM Premium and AOL. I go out of my way to let people know that they’re still paying for these things and I have never had someone told me that they still use either service. I hate it when companies take advantage of old people.
AOL still offers their client as well. It's been rebranded as AOL Gold and requires a subscription. It would be interesting to see it. Even though I'm fairly certain it's a ghost town.
there is absolutely no way that this isn’t purely fleecing old people or those who don’t know any better out of as much money as they can get before this obsolete package goes bust. just like how cable TV companies are purely subsisting off of people 40 or older by now.
Enjoyed the video for the memories of this.. It does look close to the original. I had this running on a XP machine from the early 2000's.. They offered a service with your ISP back then, where you paid them to provide your internet for you.. DSL over the phone with their own router.. I still have the router and the msn e-mail, although they only had the service for a limited time. I enjoy all the modern advances of this time, but nice to look back on old tech and software... You have a new sub from me.. G
There's prrobably 1 dude who understands it from when he and 3 other guys developed it in 2003, then he randomly gets called to fix it when a Windows update or something breaks it twice a year.
The design seems to be from the time when Windows Live Messenger was still a thing, and has remained largely unchanged since. It reminds me a lot of that. If this was something a significant amount of people still used they would have updated the design to match new Windows versions. There's probably less than 100 people still paying for it it which pays for keeping the servers running, but doesn't justify spending any significant amount of resources on improving it.
Hm interesting, that was pretty high in the early 2000s when this program had any relevance, I would know since I was still using dial-up in 2007 so I can't imagine having that speed in 2002-2003.
Hi Michael, at 7:15 when you talk about the downloading speed and the size of the setup, the "33,33 MB" that you highlight is not the size of the setup but the dialup connection downloading speed. Remember the 33K and 56K modems ? Well the "33,33MB" actually refers to a 33K dialup modem speed connection. (Insert MSN Explorer happy emoticon here 😃)
This really seems to me like a service that would have been ended with the advent of competitors like Google providing the same functionality for free, promoting companies like Microsoft to do the same to stay competitive, but for some reason, it was just never shut down. I think many Microsoft management people just forgot it existed and there's like one to three fulltime Microsoft employee just keep pushing updates just because the backlogging/Scrum software they're using keeps routinely adding tasks for it (like renewing logos, updating links etc.) and they just finish the assigned tasks without giving it any deep thought...
Either they forgot it and it's updates are all automated now or theres enough older people or businesses still paying thier subscriptions keeping the service alive and profitable 😂
I still have my msn e mail account, I've had it for like 18 years or so, it's still my main email account and I use it without problems in the windows 11 mail app and even on xbox live, I won't change it ever, it's the mail account that my mom made for me when I was like 5 years old, it means a lot to me.
Still thinking about the fact that if microsoft didn't close msn messenger and made it a phone app instead they probably would have beaten facebook on the mobile messenger market
I assume this is for people in the midwest that still don't have reliable access to high-speed internet but have a twisted pair copper phone line. When I checked a few years ago the AOL dial-up number still worked
To be honest, I have no objections to MS offering this to folk who find it daunting to keep up with technology to do the same basic tasks that they've always done. We pay for convenience and familiarity all the time. Charging money for it seems fair enough since it's a niche service at this point that wouldn't be maintained otherwise. The interface actually looks very nostalgic and something I wouldn't mind using. I'm put off by many MS services nowadays because they're "evolving" without much added benefit and updates break stuff in the process. Things like e-mail and browser were pretty much perfected 15 years ago. I can see how it can soon become frustrating that when you open your email one day, MS in their wisdom have decided to show you only email messages that they think are important and called it a focused inbox and for some reason also put skype there that you cannot disable. Yet their calendar app on Windows 10 doesn't have such a basic function like search.
What's interesting about the MSN games page is that it may very well be flash games. You were using an embedded IE browser, which to my knowledge, never turned off flash support. Some people at my job still use it occasionally to access some old internal web app that is flash-based. That makes me wonder if the only way to play those MSN games anymore is to either use this explorer program or some browser that allows flash support.
So weird! I noticed before that some legacy MSN pages are still up. But a subscription that you can still buy today to a useless service? That is something xD
That American Heritage Dictionary they're using as 3rd edition is currently 5th edition published in 2011, however in 2018 they released a 50th anniversary edition making it a sort of 5.5 edition. So they're like 2.5 versions behind.
Yes why it there. A lot of corporation were offered lifetime support for msm premium at a huge price. And a lot of them still use it. By law Microsoft has to provide this service till even the last user of the software exit.
Used to use this browser as a kid, MSN Premium used to come included with Qwest internet (now CenturyLink). It has not changed at all lol, other than swapping out some of the buttons for newer Microsoft services and the new logo. Don't like that the butterfly doesn't flap on login anymore though, that was always my favorite part... But yeah most of the time we just used IE even back then because it was more capable and didn't have parental controls (which my parents didn't care much about, but MSN Explorer wouldn't let them turn it off because I was a child account). Still have and use my MSN email though!
This is an amazing time capsule, but I can also see it being a genuinely good tool for seniors or other completely computer illiterate people to help them get around. For all the modernization of UI design that’s been done, there’s very little that actually helps make things easier to use for people who haven’t been able to learn what all the icons and buttons are supposed to mean. Having quick shortcuts to everything a typical person would need and letting you jump between them seems like a funny relic of bygone times, but I really believe there’s value to something like this. Just maybe not something running IE11.
I realized that I have been unknowingly paying for MSN for years! Fortunately for me, when I mentioned this fact to Microsoft tech support, they offered to refund me completely - only they accidentally sent me $5000 instead of the $500 I was supposed to get! Seems it was actually my fault though, because I typed in an extra 0 on accident. It’s OK though; nobody lost their job, but I did have to run down to Walmart and buy a bunch of Google Play gift cards and read the numbers to the Microsoft rep over the phone.
lol
LOL
LMAO
The fucking whiplash I got oh my god
[Kitboga has entered the chat]
There's a great sitcom here, talented young dev with stars in their eyes joins innovation giant Microsoft and is promptly assigned to the MSN Premium dev team....
funny that this has to be someone's real life. someone is maintaining it. a dead-end job in a not so dead end field.
I kept thinking of the poor devs that are doomed to toil away on this project.
@@stevem4391 they'll move up, but only after pledging allegiance to the woke mob.
Hopefully it’s just their legacy employees who aren’t quite retirement age yet, but are still devs.
I remember when MSN Explorer was the Hot New Thing in the company. A group of IE 5 devs moved over to MSN to take this on. I stayed on to do IE 6. That was the dead-end route as it turns out, since IE went into a dormant state after IE 6 shipped.
The weird mishmash of icons and design languages. It's like 2004 meets 2017 in 2021
You couldn’t have said anything weirder to represent a program right?
@@marct.g.5468 Hey I was trying to be civil to this three ring circus of a program. I’ve seen icons in this interface that go all the way back to XP then there’s some in here that I’ve seen in Windows 7 some I’ve seen in windows eight and some I’ve seen in windows 8.1 and that’s it. Then some of the interface design goes right back to XP. Some of the internal webpages in the browser Remind me of Microsoft’s web 1.5 design language. Sort of like what they had back in the days of XP when you would go and update your computer and it opened up Internet explorer to that weird update website yeah you know the one I’m talking about.
@@henrickbull yes I can understand
@@henrickbull activeX intensifies
Yeah, this whole video was a trip
I worked for msn premium as a tech support agent when it launched over 12 years ago. I worked there for 5 years. It’s amazing how much it hasn’t changed.
Are there still people paying for that in 2022? Why?
It's amazing it still exists. What's the point of paying for things you can get for free? I mean, except for an IE-like browser (I hope Netscape doesn't have paying customers too...).
@@ZiggyMercury Really old people I guess, who've been using that thing since the beginning. I'd assume that for many of those, that is "the internet"
@@xmine08 You have a point. On the other hand, it's a bit of a paradox: if they used it back then, that makes them rather early adopters of the internet. If they still use it now, that makes them super-late adopters of the modern-day internet (or, actually, not-yet-adopters of it).
How many target giftcards did you get?
when u said "what other installers have background music" i thought of piracy lol
Keygen music is lit
I remember being scared shitless when i'd open up a keygen with music in the background :)
Me too like i did not really pirate in some time and when i did to a game only on epic games store (shitty games which i hate) i was scared first. I tought russian (or chinese who tf knows) repackers hacked me. lol.
Same. CODEX pirate music
lol
the ones by fitgirls use to have bg music
I feel like Microsoft either forgot to terminate this or they have a very large business clients who rely on this.
Given that Microsoft has a monopoly on government systems (including being a massive military corporation for this reason), it’s probably a government agency. Because, you know, makes more sense continuing to give the Microsoft monopoly billions in tax dollars instead of just creating an open source OS for government use that would save a lot more money would just make too much sense.
Definitely there's money involved. There's no way Microsoft wouldn't terminate this if it was a loss. Unless a bunch of guys in the basement are keeping this alive for fun (ala The IT Crowd).
Hey maybe bill gates still uses it.
They wouldn't need support if it was an open source OS maintained by the government though
@@miguelelgueta5830 Remember when Munich went back to Windows and Office? Yeah, FOSS is not always the solution, especially with governments.
Microsoft: Removes old important pages.
Microsoft: Still offers MSN Premium.
Absolutely true...
this gave me a good chuckle
Also still supports IE under the table.. Which has maybe a 6% market share and that might even be generous... But Windows 7 is old and irrelevant, you don't need it. Lol.
@@trollsthatlol1 IE is still used by a decent amount of businesses though, especially for security cameras.
@@KrishnaDasLessons
And old software some companies use which use ActiveX plugins.
Old logo and new logo unironically coexisting on the surface of one product is the most hilarious thing I've seen
The use of Unironic, is ironic. 🤦🏼♂️
Same thing with Google Earth Pro (which isn't related to Microsoft in any way, sorry if i am off topic)
This kind of stuff is for OLD people, like someone's Grandmother who is used to the interface and doesn't want to learn how to use another program.
I think it's probably legacy support for some mission critical application that needs a component of this
My grandma can't live with Gmail, she hates it.
@@lbsiuk my grandmother couldn't live with gmail, that she died.
@@lbsiuk When gmail is loading, in the bottom right, click "simple html version" and the interface is way more readable
It could also be for people living in areas without good Internet infrastructure.
My neighborhood didn’t have anything better than 700kbps DSL until around 2014, and there are places in my state that still don’t even have anything better than 56kbps dial-up.
Dec 20, 2024. MSN Premium is still being offered by Microsoft. Check on your grandparents guys
I mean... my grandma was in her 60's when she got a computer and MSN, by the time dial up stopped being a thing and she stopped needing MSN she was in her 70's. Any attempt to change her computer routine over the years has been met with stiff resistance, any attempt to get her to change or update programs is met with "well this works for me", any time I can get past that and actually get her to install something to try she literally her repair person that's somehow kept her Dell from 2005 alive all these years make a housecall a couple days later just to remove the program.
A few years ago I just stopped trying and suggesting things and just keep her network up.
Bruh
IKR? Why am I watching this??
It runs on IE, no?! Maybe they updated it? Why? 😂
seeing modern microsoft stuff in an xp-like window feels... odd
Almost like an outdated application still somehow running in Win 10, like Winamp
ikr. I was just gonna tell him to make a video on this before he did lol
its painful looking at it
@@alexander1989x meh, Winamp is at least still incredibly useful as an audio player/visualizer even if other software has surpassed it in development, whereas there really is no conceivable reason anyone should be using MSN Explorer in 2021 hahaha
@@worf8964 painful? not at all
Somebody's job is to write bug fixes for MSN Explorer and they seem to be doing a pretty good job
Dude what bug can you have when 90% of your buttons open another website xD
@@le0t0rr3z They probably intentionally leave some bug in there so that they have something to do later. lol
@@vladimir_k_bestplayerna1217 ngl I'd do that
This basically wraps up all the design inconsistencies within Microsoft's products
like the windows 3.1 icons in the computer files…..
Not gonna lie, I feel really nostalgic about these all-in-one internet suites. Those were the early days of the internet. Things have moved on so far from things like this.
*SeaMonkey has entered the chat*
Students: What will we use for online class?
Teachers:
Mine uses teams
@@Meowzofficial looking at your comment I think that you are really incompetent
@@Meowzofficial actually they are a bit too competent for my taste however I think your a bit incompetent tho
@@Meowzofficial Jo
So thats how the school makes money
What I gather here is that it's for the older folks that don't know where to get all these things individually. I mean that would be the reason it's not discontinued. Having it all laid out in one program is essentially worth the money to them.
or to siphon money from people that forget about it
This is exactly what it is for. Im the ITmanager for a law office full of late gen x'ers and boomers and I always have to stop them from signing up or downloading shit like this.
@@tomparis37might not be a bad idea to just set em up with something like this and block all program execution lol
My grandfather, since the late 90s had MSN Premium and it was only gotten rid of last year, on his old account that was closed since 2017 after clicking a malicious link to grab his info. I didn't even know they had memberships, let alone still keeping them around. It took us two days to realize how much money he's wasted for about two decades.
Dang. Maybe once he's acclimated with open-source software for his browsing habits, convince him to try out an open-source OS and move on from Windows? You can make MATE look like a solid representation of old Windows, there's also Ubuntu Kylin UI which _feels_ a bit like WIndows 10, and there's KDE 5 which _looks_ a lot like Windows 10.
btw I use -Arch- Manjaro.
@@bluephreakr as an open source and Linux user myself I myself simply can't recommend it anyway.. it's already bad enough I have to keep going to his house for the stupidest of reasons. honestly OS X would be a better option for him as it's more idiot proof in my experience but then again, "I AIN'T BUYING NO FUCKIN MAC!!".
@@bluephreakr It's pretty difficult for old people to learn too newer something. Like you could learn any language easily when you were kid, Is it as easy today? No
Keep windows, He may not understand command line. Just get him an open source browser and if you have any other subscriptions, replace with open source alternatives. Or like he made 1000+ documents with ms office, Buy a perpetual 2019 license.
@@ntekniklaus3710 Yeah mac has easier user interface. You get everything with 1 search
@@bluephreakr your more senile then his grandfather, you really think it’s a good idea to make him switch to Linux after the story he gave?
Nobody gonna talk about how when he signed in his account it litteraly said his name
"Good morning, Michael!"
10:07
Wonder how that's possible, that it said his name in human voice. What if I have an uncommon name?
I guess it's just pre-recorded audio, and they only record common names.
@@NopWorks I'd say it's the text to speech function
@@SilentProti Yeah thats totally text to speech. Microsoft has an amazing tts software baked into cortona
I would've felt like a bad bitch using that ngl
@@deidyomega If You are interested in Microsoft's text to speech voices you should search on google for Microsoft speech studio. They are really good
"what other installers have background music"
*keygen beats intensify*
You forgot the installers for pirated games
@ツSebastian tho the music they use is pretty good
*U N R E G I S T E R E D*
*H Y P E R C A M*
*2*
Tho, reloaded chose the best music for their installers
What about Windows XP?
Apple, Google: *consistently maintains their UI language across all current products*
Microsoft:
Google Earth (desktop version) left the chat
Lol I helped my neighbor set up a new computer a week or 2 ago and he was subscribed to either MSN gold or MSN premium. Was shocked that it was actually still a thing
It's all "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Nothings really gotten _worse_ with MSN Premium, so people keep buying it unaware that all of these things are now available for free.
Lol that's why I'm here because I found that out too.
@@gavinthecrafter I think this is the best explanation for MSN Premium in 2021.
I actually had this feature and browser for years until Verizon stopped paying for the premium subscription when they sold their dsl customers to frontier. My dad was actually really upset because he had 20 years worth of bookmarks and emails that didn’t not migrate when frontier took over. Oh the memories.
Shout out to Felix for sharing that! what a genuinely nice gesture.
I love Felix!!
Skeuomorphic angled icons
Skeuomorphic flat icons
Windows 8 Metro monochrome icons with colored square
Windows 8 Metro colored icons with no square
Windows 10 fluent icon when it opens Outlook
Windows Vista gradient background
My brain can't handle this
Skeuomorphic. I’ve been trying to remember that word for the past 2 years. I just kept thinking “oleophobic”. Thanks!
And now here comes Windows 11…
@@solarstrike33 Installing MSN on Windows 11 so we can add Windows 11 rounded borders to the list.
If I hadn't seen this video I probably would've though it was a parody of Microsoft's design inconsistencies.
The irony that you can experience most of this today in Windows 11 with the start menu and any of the software that hasn’t been updated yet
Its interesting how the UI, icons and all that is Windows XP style.. but the "msn" logo has been updated to the new flat design.
Im glad it has something other than boring flat design. Also, flat isn't modern it originally was a thing in the 80s, and the more recent second coming is 9 years old already.
Yep, which led me to suspect that Microsoft's MSN team had just been performing security updates to MSN Explorer X.
Also some of the icons are from Windows 8 and not the latest ones
i hate flat design it's so boring
I miss when ui had a soul, I love the old colorful 3d elements
The design of these old programs is so satisfying and "open", looking at a windows 10 one later (or most modern websites) makes your eyes bleed
A bunch of modern and totally "legit" game installers have background music. 😉
gitfirl perack
Lmao
I like the girl with the spoon who gives me free games
@@Leurak make moar videos!
toy story 2
The mail UI is exactly the same as it was in the XP MSN Explorer. The swoopy part in the top right is the design language that MSN used for everything until Live became a thing.
I remember using MSN back in the days of windows XP lots of memories
Yeah memories 😌
WINDOWS XP STARTUP SOUND
watching this on windows xp lol on 360 chrome web browser.
Your have the most harts form him awsome
You're older than me
Imagine being told "ok please redesign the site. Make sure not to break MSN Dial Up or MSN Premium"
MSN has like a comfortable feeling interface to it, it feels nostalgic
That is with a lot of old programs. That was the design language back then, you would make the interface as comfortable as possible to make it easier for users to use a computer. AOL has a similar looking interface.
Thats cuz its 20 years old lol
The design language, having grown up using it, was absolutely designed to feel that way. The color choices were very deliberately chosen to evoke calm, the reflection Ed were to evoke water, it was all meant to fade into the background of what you were doing, feel inviting, but could also be customized heavily for those that wanted it and knew how.
When in see those interfaces, it raises my heartbeat a little cos all I remember is things breaking and not working lol.
Although it seems comfortable, things were really unstable back then.
Current interface just works and is comfort for me
@@bengaligangsta I actually find current OS less stable comparatively. I have three laptops, one from 2003, one from 2007, and one from 2010. The 2003 laptop, the cheapest of the three (about $300 iirc), has been the most stable through the years and was an absolute workhorse. My current laptop that was made in 2016 and has win 10 is the least stable of them all, to the point I spend 90% if my time on my tablet and $199 phone (this is a relatively new one that I switched to last October. Previously I was using a phone made in 2014 that I only switched from because apps were no longer working on that version of Android).
Now that you have a MSN account, time for an attempted sign in with the gold MSN explorer in XP?
This comment needs to be up higher.
Agreed. Its perfect
Y'know, that GUI has a lot of Longhorn Pre Reset vibes in it.
yes
I agree. Feels weird
@@timrutten5990 I am surprised that they have not updated the ui
@@aviumcaravan this is exactly like longhorn pre reset
@Dylan Longhorn wasn't even actually released, so you mean... no one?
I do on site tech support from time to time, and it's pretty much exclusively elderly people with varying degrees of technological ineptitude, and I can see the appeal of MSN Premium to those types of people. It has pretty much everything that kind of user would use in one easy to use program. The fact that UI looks so old I think is likely intentional and not just Microsoft not bothering to update it. Any kind of change, no matter how seemingly minor could seriously disrupt someone who is not able to do much on a computer without someone spending time and showing them in detail how everything works (and even then they often need to take extensive notes).
They're willing to wreck all their other UIs so it's probably just not popular
It looks like the only market for MSN Premium are the old people who can't learn anything newer
or won't, some individuals are stubborn
It's basically MSN's version of AOL's dialup shell. I could see someone getting this for their mother or father who's getting up there in years and not really tech savvy. It keeps them in a very safe sandbox for the most part, and it's nostalgic. Now, would I or any of my tech savvy family or friends use it? Oh, heck no! But as long as it doesn't really run scripts off strange websites, locks the user into a sandbox, and doesn't allow add-ons, I'd say it's perfectly fine for those folks who need a little helping hand.
CLEARLY the elderly is now the demographic for this "product" and service.
And apparently scammers are targeting them with this as well - as my own web search revealed
@@maximusg88 Is there any article about this?
@@KrishnaDasLessons article? Lmao who reads articles nowadays. Look up Scambaiting on TH-cam
Yeah. And people in third-world countries with sh!t internet.
I imagine the people that still work on this are in an old office with tubing sticking out of the walls, a bit of mold on some corners, furniture that doesnt match, fluorescent lighting that buzzes, in the basement of one of the Microsoft buildings
MSN, aka my front page in 2008 when I got home from school to play Runescape.
@Celly Milton
Yep, I remember that! MSN was the default homepage on most versions of Internet Explorer, albeit through a Microsoft redirect link that then redirected to the MSN website for the country the user was connected to the Internet in.
@@kbhasi A customized version of MSN still powers Microsoft Edge home & new tab pages
Oh, wow. I haven't seen MSN in years. I did tech support for them. I worked for Sykes Inc who was/is a tech support outsource company. We did support for Gateway computers and MSN internet. I took 60 calls a day helping people get online through MSN. This was 2002-ish. I remember the timeframe because September 11 happened while I was in training for that job. I was hired for Gateway and did that for over a year. Then I moved over to MSN. I had no idea it was still being sold. I have photos of me inside that call center with MSN logos on the walls. lol man. I haven't thought about that place in so long. These screens look a lot like the version I supported. Of course, it's been 20 years since I've seen it but it looks very similar. There was this key combination you could do on the sign in screen that would take you to a hidden menu with some advanced settings. I think it was something like CTRIL+SHIFT+F12 or something like that. I remember doing that a lot with customers to configure their modem.
By the way, I also did tech support for AOL from 1999 to early 2001. Yes. I'm old. I actually worked for AOL, though. That wasn't an outsourced job. I was there for the Time Warner merger. But I was commuting 3 hours a day to get to the AOL building. The Sykes call center opened 15 minutes from my house and I changed jobs. I regretted it but I also couldn't go back to commuting.
Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Sitel acquired Sykes, but you can still see the Sykes "Beer Can" building in Downtown Tampa Florida.
They seriously need to update the IE 11 back end or this app will be essentially vapour ware in the future. As IE11's lifespan is well... mainstream support for it ended in 2020 and IE11's methods of handling JavaScript isn't really compatible with modern web browsers.
Meaning web designers are looking for any excuse to drop support.
this feels like malware/bloatware. i can't believe it's an official MS product. On the other hand, I think it's so cute and cool. I love all the widgets and fun tab things. I kind of want to try it
Well, windows is bloatware, so everything is normal.
As a "valuable" MSN customer? Did they mean valued? lmao
They absolutely are “valuable” to Microsoft, considering they pay $10/mo for absolutely nothing 😛
No, considering when it was written, they meant "valuable". This was a common expression back in the day.
Freudian slip
@@RaineWilder what do you mean back in the day ? It's not acceptable anymore? Lol
@@sciuresci1403 semantically it doesn't have the same meaning as "valued", so that usage eventually stopped.
Update for 2024: It still exists.
I'm gonna buy a month just to secure a couple @msn email addresses before they retire this altogether
but you no longer can buy the dial-up one
Mmm...that late00s/early10s design aesthetic. I miss it.
At least you could see the edges of windows in those days. Before Jensen Harris got his hands on it and decided white on white works fine.
That's exactly why i'll be paying for it lol
@@Saul_Soto82 Have you subscribed now then?
@@thetelephoneprankster4254 Not yet, im gonna have to ask my father if i can
@@UltimateGamer-vg3nh take me too
15:42 I believe that it just uses the version of IE that is installed on your system, which is IE11 on Windows 10. It's likely using a WebView control (or similar), which is hooked up to the IE engine on the system, rather than having the entire IE engine inside the MSN Explorer program.
My condolences to the maintenance team for this cash cow, especially considering the user demographic.. Kill it Satya!
A lot of family computers probably have it lol. I bet they didn’t update the base browser to Edge bc a lot of the userbase is still using xp/vista
You just KNOW there's like, one intern at Microsoft and this is his whole job. Maintaining MSN Explorer. No one knows why it still exists. Most people DON'T know that it still exists, and yet, it can't die for some reason
@@nayviler I really like the Longhorn aesthetics so I would probably find it pretty comfy lol
It doesn't look like it's been maintained in a long time, except just to keep it from breaking on new Windows revisions.
It does seem to me that if this program still has a following, why not just offer it as a standalone free download at this point? It's a bit chintzy to charge people $10 a month for something that hasn't had a meaningful update since George W. Bush was President.
Better than Google who pit teams against each other like Inbox vs Gmail, then just straight up delete Inbox.
Play Music vs TH-cam Music, then just straight up delete Play Music.
This week they just dropped Google Assistant DRIVING MODE. RIP Android Auto, was nice knowing you.
My dad was on the team that built MSN Explorer! So we had it on my computer and I was IN LOVE with it as a kid.
"There's music!"
*Flash backs to the old Sky EPG music on Sky Digital.*
Remember when they used to put Christmas music in December
@ oh boy, those were the days.
@@CantPayEpisodes I heard they've stopped playing music altogether on the old Sky box EPG, and did so as of a while ago. It's just silent now.
@@mrgklnds We have Sky Q now.
Watching this is giving me weird nostalgia vibes. I kinda miss that feeling of when the internet was just starting out and exploring everything.
MSN Explorer was the perfect introduction to computers for my mom, twenty years ago. I didn't know that they'd been updating it at all since then, but I guess they kept pace up through IE 11. I would think adapting it to Edge would exceed its value, though. I doubt this service will continue because of this, but who knows?
I noticed that a lot of the small icons are taken straight out of Windows XP.
"So we've got the stock market..."
Don't mind me, just checking GME stock in MSN Explorer.
I work for a bank and I still get calls from older card members that are paying for MSM Premium and AOL. I go out of my way to let people know that they’re still paying for these things and I have never had someone told me that they still use either service. I hate it when companies take advantage of old people.
AOL still offers their client as well. It's been rebranded as AOL Gold and requires a subscription. It would be interesting to see it. Even though I'm fairly certain it's a ghost town.
there is absolutely no way that this isn’t purely fleecing old people or those who don’t know any better out of as much money as they can get before this obsolete package goes bust. just like how cable TV companies are purely subsisting off of people 40 or older by now.
I can't believe it still looks late 90's early 00's. Kinda makes me want to use it 😂
I know right, my mind says NO don't do it, but my nostalgia is begging me to pay for it and install it lol just to get that early 00's look.
Enjoyed the video for the memories of this.. It does look close to the original. I had this running on a XP machine from the early 2000's.. They offered a service with your ISP back then, where you paid them to provide your internet for you.. DSL over the phone with their own router.. I still have the router and the msn e-mail, although they only had the service for a limited time. I enjoy all the modern advances of this time, but nice to look back on old tech and software... You have a new sub from me.. G
Thanks for subscribing!
2000s, not 2000's. 🙂
I wonder if there is a dedicated developer working on it or it's just someone's side project.
I doubt this even gets enough money in to pay a full-time developer at Mcirosoft
There's prrobably 1 dude who understands it from when he and 3 other guys developed it in 2003, then he randomly gets called to fix it when a Windows update or something breaks it twice a year.
The design seems to be from the time when Windows Live Messenger was still a thing, and has remained largely unchanged since. It reminds me a lot of that. If this was something a significant amount of people still used they would have updated the design to match new Windows versions. There's probably less than 100 people still paying for it it which pays for keeping the servers running, but doesn't justify spending any significant amount of resources on improving it.
When you need to change languages in browser for some reason :
*MSN* *WORLDWIDE*
7:09 quick calculation says that "high speed connection" means 512kbit/s
Hm interesting, that was pretty high in the early 2000s when this program had any relevance, I would know since I was still using dial-up in 2007 so I can't imagine having that speed in 2002-2003.
with 50kbps download speeds for that connection.
This interface is basically identical to the XP version, just with a slight improvement.
It makes me realize how much I miss xp, and the entire environment that Microsoft created to keep users within that veryenvironment.
The mail inbox ui is based on the old msn Hotmail domain. Thanks for the upload!!!!
13:07 oh, onedrive. Well, it is being _somewhat_ updated, it doesn't say skydrive!
Wait, so you need to access the Microsoft Store using the internet to subscribe to MSN Dial-up?
Something doesn't add up there...
"MSN dial-up: Get it now!"
w h y
The fact this still exists must mean they make a lot of money on it to not abandoned it yet.
it's so interesting. you'd think this would just cause a whole lot of money to fall into a ditch; yet they still use it?
Probably costs Microsoft next to nothing to maintain it for the few thousand old people that still use it.
So $10 to browse the web the way I did circa 2003?
It's fun but I wouldn't pay money for it.
Hi Michael, at 7:15 when you talk about the downloading speed and the size of the setup, the "33,33 MB" that you highlight is not the size of the setup but the dialup connection downloading speed. Remember the 33K and 56K modems ? Well the "33,33MB" actually refers to a 33K dialup modem speed connection. (Insert MSN Explorer happy emoticon here 😃)
Kudos for bringing up "Command & Conquer Red Alert/YR" here. I'm just happy to hear someone still remembers it. lol
This really seems to me like a service that would have been ended with the advent of competitors like Google providing the same functionality for free, promoting companies like Microsoft to do the same to stay competitive, but for some reason, it was just never shut down. I think many Microsoft management people just forgot it existed and there's like one to three fulltime Microsoft employee just keep pushing updates just because the backlogging/Scrum software they're using keeps routinely adding tasks for it (like renewing logos, updating links etc.) and they just finish the assigned tasks without giving it any deep thought...
Either they forgot it and it's updates are all automated now or theres enough older people or businesses still paying thier subscriptions keeping the service alive and profitable 😂
Try putting the old MSN explorer files into the latest version to see if it works.
It would just end up with a weird messed up hybrid
I still have my msn e mail account, I've had it for like 18 years or so, it's still my main email account and I use it without problems in the windows 11 mail app and even on xbox live, I won't change it ever, it's the mail account that my mom made for me when I was like 5 years old, it means a lot to me.
I've been using my email for a long time
25:57 stretched bing logo
Still thinking about the fact that if microsoft didn't close msn messenger and made it a phone app instead they probably would have beaten facebook on the mobile messenger market
I love how they remove a lot of important stuff from their site that is still needed to be installed today but keep this up
I assume this is for people in the midwest that still don't have reliable access to high-speed internet but have a twisted pair copper phone line. When I checked a few years ago the AOL dial-up number still worked
To be honest, I have no objections to MS offering this to folk who find it daunting to keep up with technology to do the same basic tasks that they've always done. We pay for convenience and familiarity all the time. Charging money for it seems fair enough since it's a niche service at this point that wouldn't be maintained otherwise. The interface actually looks very nostalgic and something I wouldn't mind using. I'm put off by many MS services nowadays because they're "evolving" without much added benefit and updates break stuff in the process. Things like e-mail and browser were pretty much perfected 15 years ago. I can see how it can soon become frustrating that when you open your email one day, MS in their wisdom have decided to show you only email messages that they think are important and called it a focused inbox and for some reason also put skype there that you cannot disable. Yet their calendar app on Windows 10 doesn't have such a basic function like search.
I was thinking just that, thanks for writing this so I didn't have to.
The interface looks like it was designed during the development of pre-reset WIndows Longhorn
I just love these "time traveling" videos. Keep it up man! Have you ever thought about doing an FAQ?
omg 14:17 one of the emoticons in the list is Rover, the dog from Windows XP and Microsoft BOB
No one:
Michael : puts stonks.pdf on desktop and gamestop at the bottom of desktop wallpaper
19:56 the submenu has translucent effect. That kind of cool
I really miss the days of colourful user interfaces. Just look at those icons!
What's interesting about the MSN games page is that it may very well be flash games. You were using an embedded IE browser, which to my knowledge, never turned off flash support. Some people at my job still use it occasionally to access some old internal web app that is flash-based. That makes me wonder if the only way to play those MSN games anymore is to either use this explorer program or some browser that allows flash support.
This knd of service seems like a scam tha seniors would get sucked into.
So weird! I noticed before that some legacy MSN pages are still up. But a subscription that you can still buy today to a useless service? That is something xD
My heart skipped a beat seeing those emoticons. I miss them lol
So you can pay 10 bucks to make an @msn email, I wonder if you can keep it forever... what a flex honestly
I never thought I'd be so embarrassed for Microsoft. What a sad company...
That American Heritage Dictionary they're using as 3rd edition is currently 5th edition published in 2011, however in 2018 they released a 50th anniversary edition making it a sort of 5.5 edition.
So they're like 2.5 versions behind.
Yes why it there. A lot of corporation were offered lifetime support for msm premium at a huge price.
And a lot of them still use it.
By law Microsoft has to provide this service till even the last user of the software exit.
In case you don’t notice it later in the video, it pinned MSN to your taskbar instead.
Somewhere Microsoft executives: "people still *PAY* for this! Hahahahahahaha! Suckers!"
I know this entirely exists due to some random businesses and companies still using it somewhere in its systems
I wonder how many grandpas still pay for this
Used to use this browser as a kid, MSN Premium used to come included with Qwest internet (now CenturyLink). It has not changed at all lol, other than swapping out some of the buttons for newer Microsoft services and the new logo. Don't like that the butterfly doesn't flap on login anymore though, that was always my favorite part... But yeah most of the time we just used IE even back then because it was more capable and didn't have parental controls (which my parents didn't care much about, but MSN Explorer wouldn't let them turn it off because I was a child account). Still have and use my MSN email though!
what? its amazing they even maintain it in tip top shape while still retaining its original form, gotta love even the early 00s web interface
This is an amazing time capsule, but I can also see it being a genuinely good tool for seniors or other completely computer illiterate people to help them get around. For all the modernization of UI design that’s been done, there’s very little that actually helps make things easier to use for people who haven’t been able to learn what all the icons and buttons are supposed to mean. Having quick shortcuts to everything a typical person would need and letting you jump between them seems like a funny relic of bygone times, but I really believe there’s value to something like this. Just maybe not something running IE11.