This may sound ridiculous, but I have myself on my contact list. I like to know what my name looks like.

That said, what happens is that if I colour my name, or use a custom name on my own email/contact, it changes to that name when I try to sign in.

Eg. I used the custom name "AAA" in my contact list. I close MSN and open it again. I've typed in my address, then click 'Sign In'. The e-mail changes to "AAA" which prevents me from signing in.

I'm guessing this is pointless

If it helps I'm using the latest versions of MSN and MsgPlus, but I think it happened in previous versions as well.

This is because the current Plus! isn't fully compatible with MSNM 7.5.

New Plus! will be released on the 27th. Till then i advice you to either not use custom names or to go back to MSNM 7.0.

Or just remove the custom name on your address.

I also happened to notice, that many times the new Cutom Name simple doesn't appear! I changed it a couple of times, and it still displayed the age old one. Same problem? I'm using MSN 7.5, and latest Plus.

You could also use one of the programs that supports polygamy, get a second screen name, and start a second instance of Messenger to check that way, instead of having to log off from the first one.