Window live messenger online contacts viewing problems

Spark

I run XP home on my netbook and I have downloaded windows live messenger. I can send and receive emails, but my contacts in messenger always shows as offline when I know that they are not, they cannot contact me neither. Why can't I see them online when they are online? As it stands now, I cannot do anything with messenger. I was told it might be my firewall (Zone Alarm) but messenger is set as trusted all the way, so I do not know why zone alarm would prevent me to use it.

dixiebb

u could try -- temporarily -- disabling the ZA firewall and see what happens i suppose. i just use Windows firewall here and have no issues either way. in addition, the latest version of messenger i just find awful -- i now use the brilliant Skype instead. also, u could try better alternatives to messenger perhaps -- this one gets decent reviews i think:

http://www.trillian.im/windows/

Spark

I used to have an old version of messenger before, but somehow, it never worked properly on my NC10 netbook. Maybe it's something else than the firewall, but I don't know what.
On my main computer, messenger used to work but I have never used a firewall with it, and it's a while I tried to use messenger on my main computer. Surely messenger should work with a firewall.