We are using Windows Live Messenger 2009 under Windows Server 2003. We use the option: Tools > Options > Personal > Status > "Show me as 'Away' when  I'm inactive for X minutes", which works OK, but sometimes when returning from inactivity, we cannot set the status back to 'Available' except by temporarily disabling the above option. How can we fix this?

Well i think there is no such "inactive" status on messenger 2009, only Away, but im not sure.

I remember in msn 8, when you set the "x minutes inactive" you would appear inactive to others and once you returned to windows it would go away.
Im guessing in 2009, the inactive appears as Away, so you must set you stauts to online again.

It should happen automatically, it is most likely a compatibility issue between Server 2003 and WLM 2009.

Are you able to run in a compatibility mode and see if the problem exists?

We have tried running Messenger 2009 under Windows Server 2003 in Windows XP compatability mode, but the problem still occurs. The program correctly sets the status to 'Away' after X minutes, but when we return to the program, the status will not return to 'Available' either automatically or manually - if we click on 'Available' it immediately returns to 'Away', but if we temporarily disable the auto-Away option (turn it off and back on again), then the status will return to 'Available'.