Shoutbox

The first problem you reported is a known bug/limitation of Plus! (Emoticons bug)

To fix this then i suggest you use Plus!'s emoticon panel instead of WLM's, you can activate this feature through Plus!'s preferences.

As for the file transfers.... that does sound very strange, have a go at the script that NanaFreak linked to and see if that works, if it doesn't please report back and we'll help with some further investigation.

I hope we've helped.