Messenger and Passport: A Little Lame?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115028,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115028,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>This is mostly an off-topic rant, but it relates to Messenger and Passport on the Smartphone as well. Two things bugged me this week about these items: first, I got this error message when I tried to add someone to my Messenger list:<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/1contactlistfull.gif" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> Upon counting, it seems 150 is the limit. Sure, 150 people is a lot, but 150 seems like an arbitrary number, and not a very high one at that. Is it a limit because contact lists are stored on Microsoft servers, and they didn't want to have storage costs get out of control? Regardless, I don't feel 150 is enough - the limit should be 500 or even 999. Anyone else run into this limitation?Next, the issue of Passport accounts. The email address I have on my Passport account is an old one that is largely de-comissioned, so I wanted to update it to something more logical: [email protected]. I happily logged into the Passport server, updated the email address associated with my passport ID, and then logged back into Messenger...only to see a blank contact list? WHAT? 8O I then changed my email address back to the old one on the Passport server, and all my contacts came back.Now, I'm not expert on identity, but shouldn't the email address be an atribute of the digital identity that Passport represents, not the entire identity itself? Shouldn't the contact list be based on the Passport ID, not the email address? Email addresses can change over time, and unless I'm missing something (entirely possible), there doesn't appear to be a way to change your Passport email address without it destroying your Messenger contact list. Has anyone else found a way around this?

[Mike Temporale]

Gee, I'd hate to be number 151. :wink:

That really sucks. I can't say that I have that many people on my Messenger. Maybe 20 or so. I regularly go through and remove people that I haven't dealt with in a while (6 months or so). Most often these people are employees at a past contract. They can reach me by email, and don't really need a live connection to me.

I also have 2 Messenger accounts. That way if I log in breifly from my iPAQ it doesn't kick me out at my laptop. The downside is that I'm on most peoples list twice, but no one has complained yet.

[swbuehler]

Gee, I'd hate to be number 151. :wink:

That really sucks. I can't say that I have that many people on my Messenger. Maybe 20 or so. I regularly go through and remove people that I haven't dealt with in a while (6 months or so). Most often these people are employees at a past contract. They can reach me by email, and don't really need a live connection to me.

I also have 2 Messenger accounts. That way if I log in breifly from my iPAQ it doesn't kick me out at my laptop. The downside is that I'm on most peoples list twice, but no one has complained yet.

The 150-member list limit does not surprise me; it would be a resource matter on the Messenger servers if you let users have unlimited lists (you think Messenger is slow now??).

[Robert Levy]

When changing email addresses, you have to export your contact list from the old address and then import it after logging on with the new address.