Well I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, since most addons aren't made in VB, and this isn't really for a Plus! addon so much as a standalone program...but..

Is there a way to find out if a user is online or offline without having to sign into an account?

And also, is there a way to sign in on the VB program without the use of a Messenger client running at the same time?

I'm using Visual Basic 6, and my goal is to create a program which will automatically sign into an account if it detects that the specified account is offline, and sign out when the specified account becomes online, and during that time it will record any messages sent to said account, then email them to the account. (An answering machine to be left running on a seperate computer basically).

I'm just trying to figure out the best way to approach this, as I've done some similar stuff, but haven't used the exact methods.

if you could see who was online without using an account, you would have a blockchecker.

hmm this is true, thanks

keep in mind, it would only need to find the status of the user's account willingly, but I assume you still need to login