Shoutbox

Please can someone help, before i screw my computer up beyond all recognition.......

I use a company laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad X60), which uses Windows XP, we use Outlook 2007 and also Office Communicator at work,  i use Communicator daily to chat and conduct live meetings with colleagues all over the world.

trouble is, my work means i travel a lot. i am currently using Windows Messenger to chat with family and friends as the Office Communicator is not set up for external communication.

it is possible to upgrade from Windows Messenger to Live Messenger.........i have been told by the IT guy at work that i can't as Live Messenger and Office Communicator cannot be used on the same machine together. it has to be one or the other. removing Office Communicator is not an option.

Hope this makes sense and hope someone can help.

You can run both Windows Live Messenger and Office Communicator on the same machine.  There is no technical reason why they can't, and I personally have done so in the past.  Have you actually tried?

If they have federation enabled and allow you to connect to the .NET Service through communicator now, they won't let you through Live Messenger (so you'd have to use/create another Live ID).  However, given that you're using Windows Messenger now successfully, I doubt that is the case here.