MSN Messenger very broken on Macs

Microsoft's closed-protocol Windows Live, Microsoft Messenger IM environment will work for a mac under some conditions. If you first authenticate on the machine you first sign in on, you're ok, and the client works passably well (although there are many irritations, like a nearly useless search feature) ... but if you need to take on previously authenticated identities, you're hosed. It simply doesn't work on a mac. The re-authentication e-mail never gets sent. Also, the web ui, "webmessenger.msn.com" is simply broken for any browser that runs on a Mac (Firefox, Safari, and the old IE) ... it loses connections and messages quite easily.

However, MSN Messenger even works well on 8-year-old machines running Windows 2000 Pro ... set one up so you don't need to buy a new machine and give money towards Microsoft's monopoly-driven attempts to create working software.