Shoutbox

This was originally written by CookieRevised

quote:

---

The Ink/handwriting plugin is only for
Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
It was not designed for Windows 2000, but it may work. This means it is also possible that for your Windows 2000 system it doesn't work!

Read the "readme" that comes within the archive:
Before installing make sure you have the Ink Redistributables from Microsoft installed.
If you have installed InfoPen, these are already installed, else please see the InkRedist directory that you should have gotten with this file.



So, how to install:
1) unzip the file that you downloaded from http://www.msgplus.net/, http://www.mess.be/ or another website into a directory. (The ZIP file should be around 2,44MB big.) When you've unzipped it, you'll find another zip in the directory called inkredist.zip, unzip this one also...

2) Close all instances of MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger you're running completely. This means choosing "exit" when you right click on its icon in the systemtray. Just closing the contactlist window isn't enough.

3) If you don't have InfoPen installed (you probably haven't), then run SETUP.EXE FIRST!!! You'll find this in the ZIP file (inkredist.zip) inside the ZIP file you've downloaded, so unzip this one also... In the setup check the option "for all users".

4) Now run INSTALLER.EXE

the plugin should be installed by now...

5) Restart your MSN Messenger and open up a conversation with someone; you should see some extra tabs beneath the text-area.

Note: The "convert" tab WILL NOT WORK!
Note: After using the Ink Messenges intensively, it is possible that your MSN Messenger screws up. You need to restart MSN Messenger to fix this. There is nothing more you can do...



How to remove/uninstall it:
1) Close all instances of MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger you're running completely. This means choosing "exit" when you right click on its icon in the systemtray. Just closing the contactlist window isn't enough.

2) delete the file MsnHandWriting.dll from your Messenger Plus! Plugins directory. (default directory is: c:\program files\messenger plus! 2\plugins)

If, for some reason, Windows tells you that it couldn't be deleted, make SURE you closed every instance of Messenger in the correct way. If you're SURE you did this, then try to kill the processes:
Open up your Windows Task List (CTRL-ALT-DEL for Windows XP) and:
*for windows 9x/nt look for msnmsgr.exe and msmsgs.exe - end those tasks.
*for windows xp go to the processes tab and look for msnmsgr.exe and msmsgs.exe - end those processes.
Now try to delete MsnHandWriting.dll again...

You can also use the Handwriting DLL uninstaller made by Sk3tch to delete this DLL.

3) Go to add/remove programs in the software tab in your configuration settings. Look for "Ink Redistributables" or "InfoPen", click it and uninstall it.

4) Restart your computer, to make sure everything is completly removed.

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Edit: Additional points added to install option #3, as requested by: CookieRevised - JM.

==========================
Msn Handwriting
by The Blasphemer and wtbw
==========================
TROUBLESHOOTING

Since many people are having problems with the MSN Handwriting plugin,
I thought I might be able to help some of them by writing a quick
troubleshooting guide.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the fact that it took so long
to write this document. Because of some private stuff, I haven't been
able to do very much the past week.

Ok lets get started. Because some people did not get this plugin to
work at all, and it is disturbing MSN, I will first explain how to
un-install it. Most people try uninstalling Messenger Plus, however
this will not work since it will not delete the plugin, and the plugin
will still be there after a re-install.

These are the steps to un-install Msn Handwriting.

1.Stop MSN Messenger completely, or make sure the DLL
  Is not loaded.
2.Browse to X:\Program Files\Messenger Plus! 2\Plugins\
  Where X is the drive you installed windows on.
3.Delete MsnHandWriting.dll, or rename it to something not ending
  on .dll (like MsnHandWriting.bak)
4.Re-start MSN Messenger, or reload your plugins.

=====================================================================

Now we know how to uninstall it, lets take a look at the known problems,
and their possible fixes:
(P is Problem, S is solution)

P: Messenger gives an error "We are unable to start a conversation with ...
   , please try again later" everytime i try to start a conversation
S: Make sure the Ink Redistributables are installed! They should be included
   with the install package, if not, re-download it from Mess.be or the Plus!
   Website. If this does not help, your system might not be able to work
   with Ink messages.
   
P: If i try to send a message, MSN Immediatly tells me it can not be delivered,
   without even displaying the original message
S: There is no solution to this (yet), Once I have time I will try to investigate
   it, and find a solution. However it looks like it is a bug in how MSN works
   on Tablet PC. I might release a version to allow you to disable ink writing
   on specific conversations, but I haven't had enough time to do that yet.
   
P: When i choose "Convert" nothing seems to happen
S: Convert is something made for tablet PCs, It is supposed to convert your
   written text to typed text, however this does not seem to work on normal
   systems.
   
P: When i click "Handwritten" MSN automatically goes to convert mode.
S: This means your contact can not see Ink messages, thus MSN tries to switch
   to convert so it is converted to text. However see the above problem

P: MSN Crashes after re-loading my plugins.
S: Oops! sorry! my mistake! Didn't restore MSN to its original state!
   Will fix in the next version
   
P: My problem is not mentioned here!
S: Mail me! theblasphemer [at] hotmail [dot] com

I hope this document solved most of your problems!