msn and Windows Live Msgr help please!

[Jux]

What's the difference for one thing?

DD's friend wanted to 'chat' via Windows Msgr this evening. We set up an account for dd, verified it, added her friend as a contact. When dd came to sign in it wouldn't accept her password so eventually we reset it. Then we had to verify again. Eventually she signed in OK, but her friend wasn't online. However, we then got phone call from the friend asking if dd would send her a message! They chatted on teh phone for about 10 mins trying to send each other msgs but dd's Messenger kept on saying that she none of her contacts were online, even though they both were. Eventually gave up for today.

I have just signed in on her account. It says she has to verify her password and to get the link from the e-mail. There is no new e-mail, and when I use the link on the last one it says the link has expired (presumably because we have already verified).

Is it worth it?! I remember going through a heck of a palaver with Messenger years ago, which is why I haven't looked at it since. Has it really not improved in over 5yrs?

What on earth can I do to get this set up so they can 'chat' tomorrow?
Thank you. (yes, I know phone's easier!)

[NoPresentsInVictorianSqualor]

It shouldn't be a problem really, sounds complicated though!
Have they both added each other as contacts?
Once you have a hotmail/live account you can sign in from any downloaded messenger.

Just to be sure you've done it right I'll go through it again.

You start off here clicking 'get it' then create your email address.

Then download messenger from here

Sign in to messenger using your password and email address. Then go to add contact at the top (it's a green plus sign I think) input the friend's address and hit enter. The friend will then get an invite saying 'jux'sDDhasaddedyoutohercontactlist' allow or block. She has to select allow and then they should be able to talk.

HTH

[Jux]

Thank you very much.

I got very tangled up yesterday - she got a third message yesterday with a link which took me to a page which suggested she should verify her account with yet another link which actually verified her account! Could have knocked me down with a feather

Incidentally, I got on to Ask Leo, and read there that one should get rid of MSN and Messenger and go on to Live Messenger (download here) which I tried to do, but while it did download Live Messenger, it couldn't install it though my poor computer tried very hard and had 3 or 4 goes at it. Gave up on Live Messenger, and have stuck with ordinary Messenger, as we now have verification on that, though as we don't know anyone who has it apart from dd's friend, we can't test it!

Thanks for your help.