I used MSN Messenger for Mac to chat with friends throughout my childhood and early teen years. For this reason, the sounds and signs of the application are burned into my brain.
Being a contrarian, and keen to establish my own aesthetic sensibilities at that age, I decided that whoever paired the notification sounds with the notification events got it all wrong.
I found an installer for version 8 (later than what I used, but the assets seem the same) on some disreputable website, and found within the notification sound files and emoticons. I make no claims that the files here are safe: like I said, I just found them someplace. That said, here is what I was able to extract from the installer of version 8 of Microsoft Messenger for Mac.
Sounds
| Contact Online 1 | download | I used this one for the new message notification — it's got a short attack and a short overall duration. |
| Contact Online 2 | download | |
| Incoming Call 1 | download | |
| Incoming Call 2 | download | |
| New Alert 1 | download | |
| New Alert 2 | download | |
| New Mail 1 | download | |
| New Mail 2 | download | I used this one for new contacts coming online — it kinda sounds like someone warping into a cyber zone, don't you think? |
| New Message 1 | download | I used this one for new alerts — it sounds discordant and uneven to me. |
| New Message 2 | download | I used this one for contacts signing off — it's got a downward cadence and has a somewhat woody timbre, which made me think of a door closing. |
| Outgoing Call 1 | download | |
| Outgoing Call 2 | download |
Emoticons
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Avatars
(Though of course I didn't use one of these, I made my OWN avatar.)
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The installer
Download it here, but do so at your own risk.