The "Show me away when I am inactive" thing will not set me away, even in the middle of the night and I've been sleeping for hours at a time. It's very annoying to the people I talk to apperently, so how do I get MSN to set me away when I forget to turn the away thing on?

It must change your status to Away normally if you don't touch mouse or keyboard for a while (you know you set that delay in Options). But also switching to Welcome screen of Windows changes your status to Away if you checked the option mentioned above. So can you give that a try?

But when you come back, your status will be set back immediately, so you may miss the change even if it set it to Away when you are on Welcome Screen. To make sure you don't miss anything, you can install Messenger Plus! and look at its Event Viewer window if your status changed to Away when you locked your Windows session with Windows Logo key+L.

Or you can sign in with another ID on another Windows account and check your original account's status.

Can you report back what happens when you do this?

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Originally posted by oneoflittleharmony
The "Show me away when I am inactive" thing will not set me away, even in the middle of the night and I've been sleeping for hours at a time. It's very annoying to the people I talk to apperently, so how do I get MSN to set me away when I forget to turn the away thing on?

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1. Your previous status is "Online".
   When you have any other status, the Idle state will not be triggered.
   Also note that there are scripts and other addons which might change your status without you noticing it. So if you have something like that, it might be possible that they set your status to something else, which on its turn prevents Messenger from going in Idle state.
   
   
2. There isn't any activity for x minutes.
   Where 'activity' is keyboard or mouse input.
   
   • But note that there are also (bad made) programs which simulate activity in one way or the other (eg: even some screensavers do this!).
     The same with some Messenger Plus! scripts. There are some which act in the same way and thus will 'simulate' activity.
     When this happens Messenger will revert your status back to Online as this is all seen as user interaction.
     
   • Also note that if you leave your mouse alone, the mouse cursor can still drift across the screen. And this again counts as activity as your computer doesn't know if it is drifting the mouse or if it is actualy you who is slowly moving the mouse. This happens more with wireless mice than with wired mice though.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

quote:

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Originally posted by oneoflittleharmony
The "Show me away when I am inactive" thing will not set me away, even in the middle of the night and I've been sleeping for hours at a time. It's very annoying to the people I talk to apperently, so how do I get MSN to set me away when I forget to turn the away thing on?

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When that option is turned on (make sure it is ) Messenger will set your status to a special away status when there isn't any activity registered for an amount of time.

This special away status is actually called "Idle" (though, in a standard Messenger it is also shown as "Away).

As soon as there is activity again your status is set to "Online".


However, the Idle status will only kick in when:

1. Your previous status is "Online".
   When you have any other status, the Idle state will not be triggered.
   Also note that there are scripts and other addons which might change your status without you noticing it. So if you have something like that, it might be possible that they set your status to something else, which on its turn prevents Messenger from going in Idle state.
   
   
2. There isn't any activity for x minutes.
   Where 'activity' is keyboard or mouse input.
   
   • But note that there are also (bad made) programs which simulate activity in one way or the other (eg: even some screensavers do this!).
     The same with some Messenger Plus! scripts. There are some which act in the same way and thus will 'simulate' activity.
     When this happens Messenger will revert your status back to Online as this is all seen as user interaction.
     
   • Also note that if you leave your mouse alone, the mouse cursor can still drift across the screen. And this again counts as activity as your computer doesn't know if it is drifting the mouse or if it is actualy you who is slowly moving the mouse. This happens more with wireless mice than with wired mice though.

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How many minutes do you have the delay set to?

Do you have the option checked?

If you sit and wait for the number of minutes (checking that nothing moves the mouse/keyboard) does it set you to idle?

if not, then what programs do you have running (all the ones in the taskbar and system tray)

and also do you have any processes running in the background unrelated to outwardly running programmes?

quote:

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Originally posted by oneoflittleharmony
I'm sure it's not the mouse, as I have a touch pad. It might be some program. I have no screen savers, I'm running vista.  What types of programs are notorious for this?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ahmetgns
It must change your status to Away normally if you don't touch mouse or keyboard for a while (you know you set that delay in Options). But also switching to Welcome screen of Windows changes your status to Away if you checked the option mentioned above. So can you give that a try?

But when you come back, your status will be set back immediately, so you may miss the change even if it set it to Away when you are on Welcome Screen. To make sure you don't miss anything, you can install Messenger Plus! and look at its Event Viewer window if your status changed to Away when you locked your Windows session with Windows Logo key+L.

Or you can sign in with another ID on another Windows account and check your original account's status.

Can you report back what happens when you do this?

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