Shoutbox

How about a mute button?  One to just mute individual conversations and one to mute all messenger sounds.  Just temporeraly like when you've had to turn the speakers way up to watch an especialy quiet DVD and you don't want to be deafened by people beeping at you.

This is a great idea....in my opinion, but u guys will think it'll clutter up thinkgs but w/e.

another suggestion--
How about tabbed messaging?  Kinda like firefox has tabbed browsing.
That way you have 1 MSN window, and all your chats are encompassed within.

err c2 this has already been done.

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Cookie's Reply To Tabbed Chat

good luck slugger

I am not sure how useful this is but check it out.

Matty's reply to MUTE button for msn

you could use all of the above of you could just set your status to busy =/