Hi,

I have a pretty unusual problem with Windows Messenger.
not so long back I subscribed to Microsoft Office Outlook Live (MOOL). I
wanted to have the same contacts in my Hotmail account that were in my
Outlook Contacts folder. I didn't like the MSN Intellisync software (it was
buggy, wouldn't synchronise properly for me) so I decided to delete all my
Hotmail contacts (via the Contact manager for my new Hotmail mailbox in
Outlook) and then copy and paste the contacts from my default mailbox.

Since then I've been in a world of trouble with both MSN and Windows
Messengers. I have managed to finally sort out my contacts in MSN Messenger,
now that is working fine. However when I sign in to Windows Messenger I get a
couple of message boxes asking me if I want to add contacts I have already
added, as well as existing contacts being duplicated, some are missing,
others that i have blocked are not blocked anymore, the same number of
blocked contacts exists, but the blocks are on the wrong contacts. If I try
to delete a contact, messenger hangs and closes itself down.

For the mean time I am soley using MSN Messenger for IM. However, parts of
MSN Messenger (like remote assistance etc) use some of Windows Messenger
functionality to work, so I could really do with having Windows Messenger
back on track.

Finally, I have already reformatted my hard drive in an attempt to unistall
and reinstall Windows Messenger fully, but have had no luck. I have tried
signing into Windows Messenger on other machines and am having the same
problem which leads me to believe that this is a server side problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If this forum is not the correct place to post this sort of question, could
you please point me in the right direction as to who I should contact to get
this issue resloved.

Many Thanks,

David Hopkins

Greetings David,

Yes, it is server-side. Although contact lists are "the same" in both clients, MSN Messenger
uses a new protocol with complete ABCH integration (which for you means, it's using the same
contact database as Hotmail) whereas Windows Messenger uses an older protocol which has been
written as a backwards compatibility layer for the newer protocol.

As such, it sounds like there's a problem in the latter. There isn't any functionality
within Windows Messenger that MSN Messenger doesn't support. You're right in that Windows
Messenger is required to be there, but it won't attempt to sign in for any of the
functionality and therefore you shouldn't even see the problem.

I won't joke here that escalating this will be difficult (nevermind getting it fixed), so
workarounds here are probably preferred (since Vista should remove the Windows Messenger
requirement once and for all).
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2005 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.

"David Hopkins" <David Hopkins@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9FEA3B72-979C-4410-AA79-2E6F842716EA@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have a pretty unusual problem with Windows Messenger.
> not so long back I subscribed to Microsoft Office Outlook Live (MOOL). I
> wanted to have the same contacts in my Hotmail account that were in my
> Outlook Contacts folder. I didn't like the MSN Intellisync software (it was
> buggy, wouldn't synchronise properly for me) so I decided to delete all my
> Hotmail contacts (via the Contact manager for my new Hotmail mailbox in
> Outlook) and then copy and paste the contacts from my default mailbox.
>
> Since then I've been in a world of trouble with both MSN and Windows
> Messengers. I have managed to finally sort out my contacts in MSN Messenger,
> now that is working fine. However when I sign in to Windows Messenger I get a
> couple of message boxes asking me if I want to add contacts I have already
> added, as well as existing contacts being duplicated, some are missing,
> others that i have blocked are not blocked anymore, the same number of
> blocked contacts exists, but the blocks are on the wrong contacts. If I try
> to delete a contact, messenger hangs and closes itself down.
>
> For the mean time I am soley using MSN Messenger for IM. However, parts of
> MSN Messenger (like remote assistance etc) use some of Windows Messenger
> functionality to work, so I could really do with having Windows Messenger
> back on track.
>
> Finally, I have already reformatted my hard drive in an attempt to unistall
> and reinstall Windows Messenger fully, but have had no luck. I have tried
> signing into Windows Messenger on other machines and am having the same
> problem which leads me to believe that this is a server side problem?
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> If this forum is not the correct place to post this sort of question, could
> you please point me in the right direction as to who I should contact to get
> this issue resloved.
>
> Many Thanks,
>
> David Hopkins