This is a long tedious story so you can skip to "Questions:" for the quick version. ;-)
I was using Jabberwocky with MSN transport to chat with MSN Messenger contacts and had no problems. I haven't used it for a couple months and decided to try it this week. I started Jabberwocky and connected, and got a long popup message in French (?!). At first I thought it was just a Jabber transport welcome message or something and just closed it. It popped up every time I started and I couldn't find a way to stop it.
So I translated the message and it says I must change my email address to use Windows Live Messenger. I thought "OK, I don't want to use 'Windows Live Messenger', whatever that is. I'll just keep using the MSN Messenger transport." Then I noticed my contacts always stayed offline. I went to the Windows Live Messenger support page and found out that it is a replacement for MSN Messenger and it was forcing me to open a Hotmail or Windows Live Mail email account to use it. (my previous MSN was on my old company's email)
So I thought "OK, I'll open a Hotmail account." (...even thought I hate Microsoft.. but how else could I send messages?) I got to the email change page, entered everything, but got an error message saying I didn't enter the security code (from image) correctly. I tried it about ten times (yes, entering the code correctly), but couldn't get past that stupid page. So, I that means either IBrowse is sending wrong or the page was written with stupid IE-only non-standard code. (most likely)
Questions:
Did everybody using MSN Messenging have to update their email to use the Windows Live Messenger - or just the people who didn't already have a Hotmail account?
Did anybody else try to use that update page with IBrowse?
bonus questions:
Is Microsoft using the Windows Live Messenger change to create another way to lock users into using MS products?
Why the hell did they send me messages in French??
