Shoutbox

I have two different sign in names for windows live messenger, i created the second with the intention of no longer using the first one , but my contacts in the second name only show up in black type, not like my original sign on name where they show up in various forms, colours and sometimes customised by the contact themselves, with flowers etc beside the names, if i open both names , one list is all dull and black type the other is bright, but i have checked all the preferences in plus! and they are the same for both names , i have uninstalled and reinstalled both windows live and messenger plus live, cant get it fixed at all, any one any ideas please

can you post screenshots? thanks .

ok , ive taken a screen shot but dont know how to post it!!!tried copy and paste, the pox opens to put in a url address, the picture is in my picture folder , so what do i type in the address box, i was going to type the path to the picture but didnt think that was right , never posted a picture on to a help page before sorry for being dumb,

By names you mean Windows Live IDs right? Sometimes when I sign in with one of my many (13) email addresses other than the one which is my main one, I'll lose the backgrounds of everything so then I have to go and delete all the caches and reinstall the backgrounds yatta yatta yatta. And when you say "I open both names" do you mean you run polygamy and open two WLMs at once? Or are you opening a Windows Messenger and a Windows Live Messenger at once.

I could've either asked all that, or gone simple like patchou and say...screenshot please.

EDIT:

Ok so you got a screenshot. If you click the help button up the top of the forums and read that, it will tell you how to insert images. You don't actually need to read it though. Just go to http://imageshack.us and upload the image there. It will tell you what you need to copy into the post you send to upload it.

ok go to something like http://imageshack.us upload the screenshots there and then post the links they give you here

Yes i open two windows live messenger windows, and hopefully ive did the hosting thing right and this will bring up the screenshot, lol [img=http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9898/windowslivemz4.th.jpg]

OK now looking at the pic, I'm assuming that the one on the right is the old and the one on the left is the new one.

In any case, until your contacts appear and accept you in both lists, they will not look the same. I know this for a fact from when I transferred my main one from an @hotmail.com address to an @gmail.com address. And as they started accepting me and coming online I saw that both started to become identical.

So I'd say give it about a week or 2 and then they should start looking the same.

the one on the left is the old one and the one on the right is the new on, the one pn the left has my mates name with flowers etc, and i have been in contact with her all the time but she still shows up in black on the other list,she has two names too,both different on the left screen , but both just black on new one,  i will wait a while and see what happens , maybe it will change, thanks for your help

Also check that no Nicknames are stored, that could also be another factor.

Try and delete the entire messenger caches. That totally deletes the names stored on your computer. Also the names won't format until your contact comes online, as MattyRid just said.