Shoutbox

I'm using:

• Microsoft Windows Messenger 5.1.0639 at work, as provided by my company,
  Messenger Plus! 3.61.145,
  Windows 2000 SP4

My Contact List consists of mostly in-company contacts who are registered on the company Exchange server, and a few external users.  When I use Plus to create a desktop contact and double-click on that desktop contact, the external users are processed correctly (an online message window appears for users who are online, and a come-back window for users who are offline).  However, when double-clicking on a desktop contact for an internal user, the come-back window is always displayed, regardless of whether that user is online or not.  In other words, there is no way I can use the handy desktop contacts to initiate an online conversation with an online internal user.


I'm not sure if the folowing information is a clue to the problem, but will include it just in case...

The external users have their first name & last name listed on the desktop contact, and when I use their desktop contact to send them an e-mail, the correct e-mail address is used.  By contrast, internal users have their e-mail address (e.g., mike@companyname.com) listed on the desktop contact instead of their name, and if I use their desktop contact to send them an e-mail, it uses a different and invalid e-mail address, in the form mike@im.companyname.com.  Curiously, if I use the right-click context menu in Windows Messenger (instead of Plus) to send an e-mail, Messenger uses the correct e-mail address (mike@companyname.com).  It almost seems as though Plus is looking at the wrong internal field to determine the internal user's e-mail address and online status, compared to the way Windows Messenger handles it.

Hope this helps to diagnose the problem, thanks.

You mean Plus!'s Desktop Contacts don't work with Exchange server contacts? If so, it's the fact they're Exchange server contacts, and Plus! can only detect the status of .NET Messenger Service contacts.

Why is that?  Do you mean this is by design in Plus, or it's some kind of limitation in what Microsoft exposes programmatically?

It's a limitation in what Windows Messenger exposes I believe.

Thanks for the reply.  If that's true, it would be probably better if Plus didn't even allow the creation of desktop contacts for Exchange users, since they're not particularly useful.