Why is New Instant Message menu item unavailable?

[N. P.]

I am using MSN Messenger 7 beta but I guess it was always like this. In
Office Outlook 2003 when you open a contact in the Contacts folder and then
you click the Actions menu there is an option that says "New Instant
Message". Why is this option unavailable? I am logged into messenger and
still the command is unavailable.
Also, its appearence is inconsistent. It appears only in the Actions menu of
an open contact and not on the right-click menu of the same contact, nor on
the Actions menu of the Contacts folder. Why?
Is there also a way to sort contacts into Online and Offline, like in
Outlook Express. In addition, the im address field for each contact does not
auto-complete with the contact-s e-mail address. Why?
Office Outlook needs more work to be better integrated with MSN Messenger.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

There a million things that have to be set 'correctly' for it to work - you
need the person in your contacts, they need to be online, the IM display
name needs to match.... and you need a full moon. I thought it only
worked with the Windows Messenger client, but it looks like the smart tag
prefers msn now, at least when it comes to signing you in and adding
addresses to contacts.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

 

[Guest]

I'm using Outlook 2002 and have just downloaded MSN Messenger because I
wanted to be able to IM with my coworker. We have set it up according to the
instructions for Outlook 2002, (i think) but it still isn't working. Does
messenger require MS Exchange in order to work w/Outlook? If not, any
suggestions as to what else I may have done wrong?
TG