Multiple invitees drop out of chat session after being idle

In the latest version of Live Messenger I notice that if I have a chat
session with multiple invitees, if an invitee is idle for a period of time
they drop out of the chat session.

Is there any way to stop this happening?


Robert

Greetings Robert,

No and yes.

No, you can't override this behaviour, except by keeping it active (type it in every so
often, you don't even need to hit enter).

However, assuming the contacts in question are all using Messenger 2009, you can create a
group instead, and use that groups chat to maintain a constant conversation window to
everyone in the group (which won't time out).

To get started making a group, click on the icon to the right of the search contacts field in
the main contact list (looks like a messenger pawn with a plus sign on it) and choose Create
a group.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--

"Robert" <> wrote in message
news:61171698-9BC3-4275-9418-...
> In the latest version of Live Messenger I notice that if I have a chat
> session with multiple invitees, if an invitee is idle for a period of time
> they drop out of the chat session.
>
> Is there any way to stop this happening?
>
>
> Robert
>
>

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:

> However, assuming the contacts in question are all using Messenger 2009, you
> can create a group instead, and use that groups chat to maintain a constant
> conversation window to everyone in the group (which won't time out).

Many thanks for that suggestion, I'll give it a try.


Robert

Jonathan -

Two questions about groups:

Firstly, when creating a group using Messenger I am asked to type in the
email addresses of the contacts I want to add. Why can't I just select from
my existing contacts list?

I notice I can select members from a list when managing the group via the
Live website, so why can't I do this directly using the Messenger UI?

Similarly, while I can delete a group via the Live website, I cannot delete
groups using the Messenger UI. Why is this?


Robert

Jonathan -

> You can actually, it's there in the window, just not very well exposed. Above the
> text field where you're supposed to enter the e-mail addresses, there is a link
> to "Select from your contact list". I've made a quick screenshot to illustrate:
> http://messenger.jonathankay.com/scr...ctcontacts.png

OK, thanks for claryifying that.

If I may say so, that's not very good UI design. It looks like a label for
the text area immediately below it. Also, I would have thought that choosing
from your existing list of contacts would be the default (ie: contacts should
be listed on that view) rather than the default being to manually enter a
bunch of email addresses.

> Deletion of groups has to happen on the website, and after that, it'll disappear
> from the Messenger contact list several minutes later.

Is there any particular reason why it can't be the other way round? I
imagine most Messenger users expect Messenger to be the primary UI to the
application and not have to go to a website to perform certain arbitrary
actions such as deleting a group?


Robert