MSMQ has seen a significant evolution over the years, and your questions are
valid ones.
In order to get good information about MSMQ, you will need to ask about the
specific version of the OS on which you intend to use MSMQ.
See
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/communications/msmq/default.asp
for links to detailed information on each version.
For current versions of MSMQ, there is a 4MB limit on the size of an
individual message if it is in ASCII, or a 2MB limit if it is in Unicode.
MSMQ messages are stored in the filesystem in memory-mapped files, so
rebooting your PC will not delete the messages.
There is no limit on the number of messages. However, if you have a large
volume of messages open at one time, you may want to adjust specific
settings to allow virtual memory to be reclaimed more frequently than the
default (which is something like '6 hours').
You do not need to save messages to make MSMQ reliable. It is already
reliable.
With Indigo, many of these statements will not be valid, so I strongly
encourage you to read up on the Indigo framework if you intend to make use
of it.
--
--- Nick Malik [Microsoft]
MCSD, CFPS, Certified Scrummaster
http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this forum are my own, and not
representative of my employer.
I do not answer questions on behalf of my employer. I'm just a
programmer helping programmers.