MSN services such as MSN Spaces and MSN Messenger require one to create a Passport account to use them. Passport requires the use of an email address which is used as the login name of the user. However as time progresses people often have to change email addresses for one reason or the other. On such occassions I've seen a couple of requests internally asking for the ability to change the Passport account an MSN Spaces or MSN Messenger  account is associated with. 

Doing this is actually quite straightforward in the general case. All one has to do is go to the Passport.net website and click on the 'View or edit your profile' link which should have an option for changing the email address associated with the Passport. And that's it.

Thanks to a recent changes made by some of the devs on our team, the renaming process now works seamlessly in MSN Messenger. You don't have to import your existing contact list to the new account nor do your contacts have to add the new email address to their contact list. Instead the change to your email address propagates across the MSN network in about an hour or so.

The are some caveats. The first is that renaming a Passport to a Hotmail account isn't supported at the current time. Another is that you may be prevented from changing your display name from the new email address in MSN Messenger for some time. This means that your friends will see you in their contact list as yourname@example.com (if that is your email address).

The above information also applies if you've been asked to change your MSN Messenger email address because your employer is deploying Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 with Public IM Connectivity (PIC).  


 

Tuesday, 29 March 2005 18:19:28 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I don't get the option to change my email address. It's hotmail and it wants to stay that way.

What's also strange is that I can't give Passport all of the email addresses I happen to use. That way somebody could add me to messenger using any of them, and not need to know my hotmail email address, or that I only use it for IM and not for email.
Tuesday, 12 April 2005 07:21:42 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I likewise can't change my email address... at least, not on the passport account that's associated with my hotmail address

That's fine though; it's associated with hotmail for a reason - it makes a great spam bucket.

My other account, only given to trusted friends, points elsewhere - and I'm able to edit that one

So: your comment above was that "It's not possible to change to hotmail" - it looks like we're also not able to change away from hotmail..
Thursday, 05 January 2006 22:05:19 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Today i renamed my passport from timattimwebdesigndotnl to timvdeatgmaildotcom. My contactlist is unchanged ;) so is my nickname. But all my contacts appear offline.
intimidate
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