NICKNAME TIPS 'n TRICKS

1) AzN_Kronik discovered a trick to have a blank nickname. Just go to Personal Settings and delete your current nick. Then hold ALT and press 0160 (with your numeric keypad on a Standard US keyboard). Press ok et voilà! Or just click here (for older MSN Messenger versions only), copy the nickname above to your clipboard and paste (CTRL+V) in your nickname settings.

NEW If the trick above doesn't work for you, download Death Dream Messenger Toolz from MSN Downloads and choose Flashing Name from its options. Shut down the program when you're nickname is empty et voilà!

2) Thanks to Stieno, you can now include a HARD ENTER in your display name to make a nick of multiple rows. Just experiment with it yourself, it's a pretty cool feature.

NEW You can actually underline your nickname using the hard enter. The guru discovered this format: (your nickname)HARD ENTER¯¯¯¯¯ (make this line as long as your nick). And ramx1 added: "if u add a shitload of spaces before the hard enter most users wont notice the ugly way it looks in the contact listing... it'll only show up on the chat window". Neat huh?!

3) A slasher tip: Use /, \ and | to make your own m, w and v (/\/\, \/\/ and \/). and while we're at it, why not throw in ) and ( to make (\), (\/) and (/\). Cool huh?!

4) Blocked Baffler trick by + HackPlus +! and I quote him:
"Fool your average online chatter friends by adding "(Blocked)     " next to your name. Thats the characters "(Blocked)", followed by several spaces ended with a null charager "alt-0160" . It'll confuse a lot of your contacts when they see u online and off! :)"

THE HOLY LIST OF FORBIDDEN WORDS

...And Saint Microsoft spoke to all Messengers: "Thou shall not use any of the words below -nor any combination (prefixes/suffixes) with them- in your nickname!"
Err... yeah right! Have a look at the suggestions underneath the list to use them anyway. Some (yet-to-be-released) MSN Add-ons are also capable of bypassing Bill's filter.

Thanks to Stefan, Tom Nor, AzN_KroniK, Geoffrey G, Dammit, Matthew Maddock, Kevin, Jeroen, asdf, Kirsten, Koen, Tim Schultz, Chenn, Dreadpussy, Cyber_surfer, Niels, GioneNn, Ruben, V!d®10, ^sKa^ , Ajin Man Tuladhar, Job, Dieuwke Planting, Chris, Jae_x777, D@ve, Wiiseguy, agenious, Jason, chenn en frankman, Madigan89, Rohcodom, miKe, Andy, mstheultimate, SaRaNGi, Gregorius, Athlon 2o0o, ZiLLa, Merlijn, vlad, Mark, ®andeep, Glen, Tom M, Job, Hell_ya_buddy, InterceptoR, Tominator, Laurel, MëGåÑ, meksilon, Aaron, Rohcodom, Jouke, Laura, Monga Jr. and Nevermind... for contributing to this list!

If you discover another word, just e-mail me but check the list first... and remember the no prefix/suffix rule (eg. remember/member/membership)!

Words in bold are new contributions

 1) Surf to http://www.passport.com/ and Sign In.
2) Then click "Edit the information in your .NET Passport" or "Edit My Profile".
3) Change your First name to whatever you want your name to be (for example "Microsoft employees are shitheads").
4) Check the box in front of "Share my first and last names."
5) Then click on "Update".
6) Sign Out from the passport site.
7) Delete your Nickname in Messenger (your hotmail address should automatically replace it).
8) Sign Out From Messenger and sign in again.

If it doesn't work, you're doing something wrong... post your problems on the Forum.

Other tricks on how to use them anyway:
1) Put a dot between the letters: eg. M.e.s.s.e.n.g.e.r
2) Put a space between the letters: eg. M e s s e n g e r
3) Put this hidden character between the letters (thanks to Daniel), it wil disappear in the chat box.
4) Use the Nickname Construction Kit above to find alternatives for its letters: eg. M $$ NG R