Do you hate the new version of Skype? I do. It sucks.
Do you want to change back to Skype 7? Read on…
I had my preferences set on ‘automatic update’, so one morning I started up Skype and found… nothing! Skype was there, but everything was different. I couldn’t find my contacts, couldn’t figure out how to phone someone in stead of skyping them (I have a Skype-in number and a world VOIP phone contract) and it was not possible anymore to message (SMS) any mobile phones. And never mind the childish, snapchattish new design. WTF!? Mind boggling! I mean, why would they go out of their way to make Skype worse? Then I realised Skype has been bought by Microsoft, which explains a lot. Those guys have no taste. And for customer service you have to go through one of their public forums. Where you find lots of other people have asked the same questions, and have not been giving any sane answers. Or no answers at all.

Change back to Skype 7 – can it be done?

I googled around to see if I could download an old version and change back to Skype 7, but of course then you find yourself in a quagmire of shady commercial sites and you never know what virus or worm might be piggybacking on your download. So back to the site of my nemesis… where lo and behold, they’d wised up and are now offering the possibility to download ‘Skype Classic’ (Coca-Cola new formula, anyone?). So if you want to change back to Skype 7, the powers that be have bowed to the shit storm and made it possible.

So that is what I did. Now I have my old Skype back. And – except for the debilitating new design – everything is where it should be. And even the messaging to mobile phones works again.

This by the way makes me believe they’ve really screwed up and released a beta version of the ‘new formula’. Questions about this missing messaging function are simply ignored on the support site. Maybe next time they think of something new, they could test with a couple of unsuspecting Skype users, in stead of getting a group of yes-men (M/F) from accounting or sales to do the beta-testing. You know the type that does not know the difference between ‘success’ and ‘sucks’.

DAMN, what a waste of time!

By the way… anyone knows how to turn off automatic updates?