LiteStep.net Forums

Hello, I have recently installed LiteStep (Which is excellent) and MSN6 does not start. I have searched the forum for posts regarding MSN and what I found was something about expanding the system tray to find it. I do not know how to do that so I checked the running taskts using CTRL+ALT+DEL and MSN messenger is not there so the program never started.

Is this M$ being a pain or can I work around this somehow to get MSN6 working? I'd really like to get MSN6 working (or atleast an alternative if you have suggestions) or I'll have to go back to using explorer.exe.

Thankyou for reading I hope my question isn't too newbish.

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Relevent information-
O/S: Windows ME
LiteStepSkin: resonance
IMService: MSN6
RAM: 191MB
CPU: 600MHz

I've never ran MSN with LS so I can't offer a solution to your problem. I refuse to use any product forced apon me. So I uninstalled it and installed Trillian. MSN is probably better than Trillian but Trillian will let you access ICQ, AIM and MSN in the one application.

I've tried Trillian before but it didn't seem to work properly (I could only connect to one service at a time). I think its because it needs a lot of resources and I'm usually using most of my resources.

I don't know of any other clients to MSN that are anywhere near as good as MSN6.. m$ have done a good job with MSN6 and thats a real unusual thing. Which is why I'd like to get MSN6 working if possible :)

You should get miranda IM. But anyways, could msn be depending on parts of explorer?

you could put a shortcut to the msn6 executable in the startup folder of your start menu (assuming it's not already there). or if you're using a scriptable shell manager (such as the excellent shellon v3 [http://www.dx13.co.uk/sov3/]), you can set it to launch msn6 if litestep is loaded as the shell. see your shell manager documentation for more info. in shellon v3, the script would look something like this:

loadshell (shell) ;this is added by the program

ifeq (shell, "litestep")
begin
exec ("path\to\msn6.exe", "", "")
end

incidentally, trillian really is a great instant messaging app. i currently have 9 nicknames signed on to four services (2 on msn).

Thankyou for your responses but I have solved the problem. It appears to be the the DDEserver. MSN6 requires the full DDEServer to be used and not the DDEService. This option was easily changed in one of the litestep .rc files in the /personal/ dir, I think.

I hope this information can help others who want to use MSN6 with LiteStep :) Incidentally, I now have trillian as well and I do like it.. but I like being able to add my own emoticons (as done in MSN6) more.

Thankyou for your help, g'bye for now.

erm, what exactly did you change? Did you enable LSUseSystemDDE?

I changed file C:\LiteStep\personal\persnal.rc by uncommenting LSUseSystemDDE, yes. Why?

Because other people might have the same problem and this way they know what to do. And because I'm curious. This is the first situation ever where using LSUseSystemDDE is different than using liteman (apart from memory usage). If reports like this keep coming in and there are no negative sideeffects I'll consider enabling LSUseSystemDDE by default in the next 0.24.7 beta build.
So if you experience any difficulties with this setting turned on please post back here or send me an email.

Ok ilmcuts, i'll be sure to do that but for now I'm going to basicly stop using LiteStep. Of the many themes I downloaded only 2 worked and of those 1 worked properly (as far as I could tell) and being as I do not know how to make a theme that will work I've decided it isn't worth the trouble (I need to see whats happening on my computer and be able to access it as fast as possible).

If anyone knows of a skin that works easily please let me know.

well, they pretty much all do. what problems are you having?

don't know if this is your problem, but if you have a less common desktop resolution (ie not 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x768, 1280x1024, or 1600x1200), you'll have more trouble than otherwise. some themes are dependent on those sizes, and won't work on anything else unless you edit the settings manually.

My resolution is 1024x768 at high colour 16bit. Basicly whats been happening is that the skins do not apply correctly (I was left with nothing but a background, not even the right click menu) and I had to ctrl+alt+f1 to get out.

Two themes did work though and they were Resonance and Simplicity. However, simplicity doesn't work properly as it doesn't list all the running programs at the bottom (which I think it is ment to). Resonance works fine as far as I can tell but it just doesn't suit my needs.

I swear to god.. http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=1599

You swear to god for what?..

did you go to that link right next to "I swear to god..."? it should be the solution for your first problem. there's only about 100 threads about it, so I can see how you would have missed it. (yes, that was sarcasm) for the simplicity problem, does it not show specific programs, or does it not show programs after you reach a certain amount?

About the MSN6 thing... I switched from explorer to LS a week ago with MSN6 running, and it kept running .. never had _any_ problems.
And no, I did *not* enable system DDE ;)