A Messy Mess

The latest KMess (v2.0.3), a 3rd-party MSN client, is supposed to properly set-and-retain the friendly name.

However, I still encountered a situation where the friendly name is always reset to the MSN ID (e.g., abc@def.com) which is an email address. Guess that's the price to pay for messing around with different 3rd-party clients.

Luckily the situation could be salvaged, somehow. This was after a series of trials-and-errors (coupled with frantic login/logout sequences). Talking about having too much time with nothing to do!

Anyway, enough with the babbling. Here's how to sort out that messy mess:

1. First, change the friendly name from abc@def.com to another (random, meaningless) email address such as xxx@yyy.com.
   
2. Logout and re-login.
   If the friendly name is still the new email address xxx@yyy.com, then this is a good sign.
   
3. Now, change the friendly name to whatever wished.
4. Logout and re-login, and hopefully the name stays intact.