Skype 5.0 for Windows goes Gold
I’m proud to report to you that Skype 5.0 for Windows is now Gold, and we’re ready for everyone to start enjoying the new user experience and features offered in this release.
Principal new features:
* Group video calling (beta)
* Skype Home
* Integration with Facebook
* Offline instant messaging
* New contact search and improved contact adding
* Enhanced call quality experience
* User interface refresh
We recommend that you upgrade straight away, as some of the new features – Group Video Calling and Offline IM – are only available for people when all participants are using the latest version.
Start downloading it now and let your friends know about it.
Before talking more about the new features I would like to thank all the people who have given their feedback to us – it matters a lot. One good example is the fact that we have made showing avatar pictures in the contact list an optional feature.
Please continue to give us feedback on this new version of Skype – just comment this blog post, talk on our forums or report issues in our issue tracker.
Group Video Calling
In Skype 5.0 we support group video calling which enables families and businesses in multiple locations to meet with each other over video. Group video calling requires a modern computer and broadband internet connection.
Skype Home
Skype Home is a new area in Skype which provides relevant updates for you, including information about your purchases, your friends’ mood message updates, and videos to help new users get started with Skype.
Integration with Facebook
We have introduced the Facebook news feed, where you can keep track of the people and communities you care about. You can also see your Facebook phonebook, which lets you call and SMS your friends on Facebook. You can also comment on and ‘like’ wall posts, just like you can in Facebook itself.
Offline IM
Now you can send and receive messages from your friends who are offline. Messages will be delivered when you sign in to Skype, even if your friend is not online anymore.
This feature works only for the people who are on the Skype version which supports it.
Enhanced call quality experience
In this new version we have considerably improved the call experience if something goes wrong with your Internet connection.
Skype will inform you about potential issues with the call and offer advice about how to improve your call quality. Skype also tries to re-establish your connection to the person you’re calling automatically to avoid call drops, and if the call should still drop, we inform you about it and automatically redial the call for you.
User interface refresh
We have made numerous updates to Skype’s UI, including a new profile and mood message area as part of Skype Home; the Contact list, which now shows your contacts’ profile pictures; Recents list, which is a merger of the former Conversations list and History; and other minor tweaks and improvements.
Full release notes for the release build 5.0.0.152 are:
Changes:
| Category | Description |
| Calling | Removed post call experience |
| Contact list | Added an option to disable avatar pictures in contact list. |
| Category | Description |
| Accessibility | Accessibility in Call Phones tab was not properly supported. |
| Accessibility | Accessibility was not fully supported in Call View. |
| Accessibility | It was not possible to accept or reject a contact request via keyboard. |
| Accessibility | Labels in Add people widget were not visible to Jaws. |
| Audio | When the user redialed within 10 seconds the audio was sometimes silent. |
| Browser plugin | During Skype update it was impossible to change language for Skype browser plugin. |
| Browser plugin | Skype browser plugin was wrongly interpreting US vanity numbers that exeed 11 digits. |
| Browser plugin | Sometimes the browser plugin dropdown menu was shown in the wrong place on the screen. |
| Call phones | Call Phones tab showed wrong information about subscriptions when user did not have reccurring payments enabled. |
| Call Phones | Call to invalid number message was not cleared. |
| Call phones | Calling rates under subscriptions were sometimes not correctly shown. |
| Call phones | Header area in call phones tab sometimes showed some messages in text format instead of graphical. |
| Call Phones | Numberpad on call phones was not displayed properly on low screen resolutions. |
| Call phones | Sometimes the rates lookup drop down list appeared in wrong place when using Skype in compact mode. |
| Call Quality Indicator | Call Quality Indicator did not warn user if he mutes microphone in Windows settings. |
| Call Quality Indicator | Call Quality Indicator stated unknown connection speed. |
| Call Quality Indicator | Call restablishment message will remain on a call which appears to be fine, though available bandwidth is very low. |
| Call quality indicator | The call quality indicator sometimes incorrectly reported medium quality when in fact the video call was in high definition. |
| Call transfer | Call transfer to a phone number not in contact list did not work. |
| Call Transfer | Video was not transmitted after call transfer. |
| Call view | Occasionally the call view had white boxes instead of texts. |
| Calling | In rare occasions Skype crashed after changing microphone. |
| Contact List | Creating a Skype Out contact from recently dialled numbers was malfunctioning. |
| Contact list | There were some text formatting errors in Recents list. |
| Contact search | Avatar picture was not displayed in Public profile view. |
| Contact search | Sometimes, Add contacts buttons text was only partially visible. |
| Contact search | User search, based on e-mail and phone number, did not display partial results if full matches were present. |
| File Sending | On rare cases file receiver saw a erroneous message ‘The file isn’t available’. |
| File transfer | Skype sometimes stopped responding when accepting File Transfer in group conversation. |
| Group video call | Message box that appears so users can activate a free trial remained even after trial is activated. |
| Group video call | Often when adding a third participant to a video call the host was not notified about the need to activate a free trail in order to use group video calling. |
| Group video call | Placing a group video call with no free trial appears to other participants as missed conversation. |
| Group video call | Video could sometimes freeze for some participants on Group video calls. |
| Localization | There was no support for languages read right to left in profile view. |
| Login/Logout | Skype opened in focus if Skype was set to autostart. |
| Miscellaneous | Skype sometimes crashed when switching Windows user under Windows 7. |
| Miscellaneous | Skype was starting as maximized during autostart process. |
| Miscellaneous | When opening main menu Skype asked user to install Flash player if user did not have it previously installed. |
| Screen sharing | During screen sharing, the shared area may be partially cropped when resizing it. |
| Screen sharing | Netbooks with Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Graphics Chipset and Windows 7 sometimes had problems when receiving large screen sharing resolutions beyond 1322 x 823. |
| Screen sharing | Receiving a large resolution screen share could have artefacts on screen. |
| Screen sharing | When receiving screen sharing from Skype for Mac version 2.8, sometimes the screen does not load on the 5.0 side. |
| Skype Access | The Skype Access connection display did not pop-up correctly when trying to connect to supported hotspot after starting Skype up. |
| Skype Home | In some cases, avatar pictures were missing from Skype Home feed. |
| Skype Home | Occasionally mood message update displays may be disrupted when the network connection is momentarily lost. |
| Skype Home | Skype Home is not scaling very well to small and big window |
| Skype Home | Sometimes there was a connection error when trying to open account panel from client alert in Skype Home. |
| Skype Home | Un-sent mood message updates within Skype Home will not be saved when navigating away from Skype Home. |
| Video | Clicking on the webcamera settings may cause Skype to crash. |
| Video | In rare cases users video may not start correctly when using Logitech webcam pro 9000. |
| Video | In rare cases, video may not be received by the other party even if the local preview is working correctly |
| Video | Skype crashed if user quit Skype during an active call. |
| Video | Skype may not work properly with virtual cameras |
| Video | Switching between USB camera and HP Virtual webcam locks the camera |
| Video | The call receiver may not see HQ logo on their side during HQ call |
| Video | The receiver may not see HQ logo in the local preview while the receiver sees the logo on his side. |
| Video | The Skype video snapshots feature is not working on Windows XP SP3. |
| Video | This version of Skype (5.0) has increased CPU usage which may effect video quality on some computers. |
| Video | Under some circumstances upon ending a Skype Video call the webcam can still be capturing video even though it is no-longer in use. |
| Video | Video call picture quality was sometimes lower than expected in good conditions. |
| Video | Video calls may not work with virtual machines. |
| Video | Video calls on a secondary display causes higher CPU load compared to usage on the primary display. |
| Video | Video may stop if you lock and unlock your computer while on a call |
| Video | Video might freeze in calls with H.264 devices. |
| Video in mood | DailyMotion videos which have been added to a mood message are not being displayed to other contacts. |
| Voicemail | Calls go to Voicemail for offline users even if they have disabled it from Options. |
| Voicemail | Message that display’s “Item has been deleted from conversation history.” sometimes appeared after sending Voicemail. Voicemail itself will be sent without problems. |
in skype 5 it’s impossible to search for worldwide contacts like in earlier versions.
but at supoort pages it’s described how to do it by “contacts” and “actions”!!
I sent an email about this to skype. but all time the same: doens’t come any reply like all time!!!
what’s going on?
I’m going to install an elder version again.
i downloaded skype 5 but my window says “cannot find proc address d3dperf_setoptions d3dg.dll” what must i do?
i am using xp professional
please help
Downloaded “Skype 5″ and installs ok. but crashes each time that I try to sign in
Not impressed, Skype team ! I have Windows Vista 32 bit with all recent updates
Thankfully I have Skype 4.1.0.141 saved somewhere
hi,
why i can’t see my own avatar with Skype 5 ?
i did see it when i had Skype 4 ^^
And where is the Skype me Modus? Still not back????
I wish I could use Skype 5.0, but it completely breaks the sounds playback engine. Instead of futuristic phone rings and other funny noises, all I hear are annoying crackles and distortion. Back down to 4.2 for me until they can get a handle on the new version.
Skype 5 is a shocker. The interface looks good but works badly when multi tasking. When you scroll for people to add to a group chat you end up calling them. The system is slower, the listing of people with images is poor and the welcome page looking like a facebook or Twitter message board is not necessary. Skype is skype is skype. Stop being something your not. I will now look to go back to version 4.2
I have the same problem with Win7 64 bit. Crashes during sign on.
Anyone have a copy of 4.1.0? The newest version I have a setup for is 3.8.
Is the Skype programming group working on this COMMON Win7/64-bit problem?
YOU SHOULD MAKE CLEAR THIS NEW RELEASE LEVEL IS NOT SUPPORTED ON WINDOWS XP. I downloaded this latest version of SKYPE today and spent over 4 hours trying to get it to work. The problem appears to be that V5 does not work with XP. I am having to reinstall the earlier version V4 to get it to work. Your download web page just says install with WINDOWS. This is not the case. Please make this clear so other XP users do not waste their time as I have today uninstalling everything from the registry as per your online instructions. I am not very happy. At least have the decency to warn other users of this problem. Up until today I have been very pleased with Skype but am sadly disappointed with the update.
I like new feautures like Group Video call and facebook add on. But I am continously facing problem of disconnection with skype. During one to one video call, my skype logouts quite frequently and it is annoying. Previously with older version I had never been experienced such problem since last 3 years. I don’t know the reason but I am sure that it is not due to internet connection (or its downlink uplink speed) as I have very fast internet connection since last 3 years.
same connection speed, faster computer, better camera, worst than before. 5.o is not good, sorry
I just installed 5.0.0.152 on a Windows7 ultimate 64, it is working fine with me .. except for a very small detail .. it is working as 32 bit only .. is there a version for 64? would it work faster? or consume less ram space?
Screen Sharing doesn’t work in group videocall
Disappointed with the new version 5.0 … I do not like the new contact search … The old one was much more convenient … You could search by country towns, over the age of man. I beg to return sary search polzovateley.I still did not like the quality of video .. all the time freezes video buddy .= (I had to return to the old 4.2 version = (
already downloaded but still can not start skype again? Why?
Skype 5 doesn’t with HP Webcam HD-3100. It does with Skype 4. Let me know when it’s fixed in 5 and I’ll upgrade.
Switched on PC. Skype 5 upgraded automatically the older version, that worked perfectly.
New skype 5 does not work. I refreshed all my camera software +directx + all new patched of XP Prof. and uninstalled and reinstalled many times. Nada..Niet..Nothing.
Skype 5 starts and freeze at sign in or immediately after.
SKYPE PEOPLE>>>WHEN ARE U GOING TO PLUG THE ISSUE OF SKYPE CRASHING????ITS HORRIBLE>>>>WHAT I COULD GATHER WAS THAT SINCE MY NAME HAD TWO .. it created problem…
SKYPE PEOPLE>>>WHEN ARE U GOING TO PLUG THE ISSUE OF SKYPE CRASHING????ITS HORRIBLE>>>>WHAT I COULD GATHER WAS THAT SINCE MY NAME HAD TWO .. it created problem…
Screen sharing feature doesn’t work for my I have Skype 5.0, the last Skype had screen sharing and I need it, help what do I do?
I really don’t like skype 5. It automatically updated me and didn’t give me a choice not to do it. The format is really awkward. How can I switch back to the older version?
How can you get back from 5.0 for windows to 4.2? i got an automatic update but i really don’t like 5.0. i don’t know how to change it back. can anybody help me?
For all of you struggling with new Skype 5.0 you have a choice of:
http:// www oldapps com / skype.php
and BTW it worked for me with Win XP x64 PC with no probs and completely fails to install and work with Win 7 x64 (wtf?!?) anyway I’ll keep trying.
After update to 5.0 cannot use it anymore (with 4 everything ws perfect). when I call a contact (including EchoTest Service) after the “tut tut” whwn connects, it takes down to zero Audio master volume : I do not hear anithing. If i try do put it up it stays one second, and goes down. Only after end of connection I can regulate it again. No way to use skype. No posible to use anymore voip phone, that worked well till skype5 arrival.
PLS HELP ME!.
Suggest a solution to get thge audio or tell me how can I downgrade to skype 4
The new skpe is horrible with slow connections… becoz it thinks the call has dropped even before it has and tries calling the other person again. the old one would just get stuck for a few seconds and work. Is there any way of cancelling the autocall back function.
I am back to Skype 4….
hello, i think skype 5.0 is realy rubbish , it cant start on windows 7¬ . where can i get now 4.2 ???
Upgraded to 5.0! Since then I can’t get it to work!!! Uninstalled few times – the same! Skype is crushing every time I start it! Was trying to install the previous version, the same! What happened!! Need Help!!! Mine is Windows 7 64 bit
I tried Version 4 und tried Version 5 – and every time went back to Version 3.8.
I am MISSING:
a) show camera-Symbol within the contact-list please
b) show in the contact-list, when the contact was last “seen” in Skype
c) make it possible, please, to definitely DELETE the history, and not only hide it
…….
I have equipment that works with “speed dial”, so I am forced to stay with version 3.8
I’m still loving 3.8.0.188 !!! runs XP with no problems and easy overview!
I just downloaded it today so don’t have much experience with it yet. One feature I really need that the last couple of upgrades hasn’t included is the option to have back the old “History” tab, with the whole history of incoming/outgoing calls along with the voicemails received. Thank you.
I am really tired of Skype 5 crashing on sign on and when I am about to access some function. I believe this started with v. 5 – with GUI change. Horrible. I am already using Gmail whenever I can but some friends seemed to be hooked on Skype… for now. If this goes on Skype is signing its own death warrant by delaying the fixes to this horrible release.
Happy New Year!
I’m running Skype v5.0.0.156 on Windows 7 (32 and 64) without any problem !