Memory Leak in Windows Live Messenger 8.0

Yesterday, I thought I'd try out the new Live Messenger. It comes with some great new features such as offline messaging (as in Yahoo! Messenger) and also allows you to add and communicate with Yahoo! contacts.

The first thing I noticed was how slow it is. I decided to check its memory and CPU usage and so brought up the Task Manager. Here is what I saw:

Fig 1. Task Manager showing Windows Live Messenger 8.0

Live Messenger is using 95% CPU, but more shocking is the fact that it is using a whopping 210 Megs of RAM!

I have now uninstalled it and have reverted back to MSN Messenger 7.5. Just for comparison, here is a screenshot of my Task Manager now, which looks much better:

Fig 2. Task Manager showing MSN Messenger 7.5

Needless to say, I'm going to be sticking to 7.5 till Microsoft fixes this leak.