Bug: Message History not saved until IM window closed.

IM conversations should update the history file whenever a comment is posted
in the window. Currently the information is not saved until the window is
closed, meaning that if you leave up an IM window for an extended period of
time your chances of losing the entire conversation history is great because
a PC crash is inevitable.

There is no feature that causes the information to be saved to the file.
The "save" feature provided is different because it is a feature for handing
the writing to a user-specified file. The only way to reliably maintain the
history of a conversation is to use the manual (and cumbersome) save feature
or constantly close and reopen the IM window.

This piece of functionality would be far more useful than those quarter
screen animations of a guy smashing a guitar. Though they are cool, I'd
rather feel safe knowing the computer isn't going to throw out my
conversation.

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Jonathan
Mon Jun 20 16:40:03 CDT 2005

Greetings Steve,

I'm afraid this isn't a bug as its by design. You can actually get constantly saving logs by
using Messenger Plus (http://www.msgplus.net) which will just save to text files.

At least with the current iteration of how message archiving is done, there would be a
performance hit by doing what you suggest as it would constantly need to parse the XML file
(of course yes, I realize it could lock down the file on conversation window opening and
write directly to it, but...).
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2005 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.

"Steve" <Steve@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:16C8AD0C-7FE1-4B4E-AC9F-D4E8210A6C68@microsoft.com...
> IM conversations should update the history file whenever a comment is posted
> in the window. Currently the information is not saved until the window is
> closed, meaning that if you leave up an IM window for an extended period of
> time your chances of losing the entire conversation history is great because
> a PC crash is inevitable.
>
> There is no feature that causes the information to be saved to the file.
> The "save" feature provided is different because it is a feature for handing
> the writing to a user-specified file. The only way to reliably maintain the
> history of a conversation is to use the manual (and cumbersome) save feature
> or constantly close and reopen the IM window.
>
> This piece of functionality would be far more useful than those quarter
> screen animations of a guy smashing a guitar. Though they are cool, I'd
> rather feel safe knowing the computer isn't going to throw out my
> conversation.
>
> ----------------
> This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
> suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
> Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
> link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
> click "I Agree" in the message pane.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?mid=16c8ad0c-7fe1-4b4e-ac9f-d4e8210a6c68&dg=microsoft.public.msn.messenger

Steve
Tue Jun 21 08:49:03 CDT 2005

So then save on a timer - say once every 5 minutes have the data cached to
whatever file IM is using to save the files.

Do you find it acceptable that entire conversation histories can be lost
because another application hangs the system? I don't. IM windows aren't
like an instance of Microsoft Word where you have some work to do then you're
done. Converstations on IM can be ongoing and it's a shame that Microsoft
doesn't find these conversations important enough to either save on its own
or allow the user to do it manually.

>> You can actually get constantly saving logs by using Messenger Plus
>>(http://www.msgplus.net) which will just save to text files.

But the IM I use now can already do that!
Do you really not see the problem with allowing conversations to become lost
so easily? The autoarchiving functionality is extremely handy, especially
now that the IM window can automatically display the previous discussion.
What you are suggesting is that the user maintain two copies. Think about
it: when a user remembers a portion of a converstation in an IM they must now
check the auto-generated backup and the nearly-identical manually created
backup incase the auto-generated backup failed to maintain a record because
the system crashed.

Plus those manual text files lose a lot of the functionality provided by the
autobackups. Why should the user lose so much functionality when all the
Microsoft developers need to do is either A) provide a way for the user to
save their data to those archive files or B) update the files automatically.
Personally I don't believe it could possibly be that much of a performance
hit.

I find this problem occuring quite often in Microsoft software. Information
that could easily be recorded permanently to disc (like application settings)
are only written to disc when the application closes successfully. Windows
is still not stable enough to expect that an application will be closed in a
safe manner so software should not be designed to expect it.