Windows Live Messenger problem . . .

Stay with me on this, because this is going to be a convoluted explanation.

Yes, I have ZA, but WLM IS on the allow list.

Well . . . there's another nuance here, that I didn't expand on in my original post.  The instance for her is actually the same WLM that I sign in to on MY machine except I sign in for her . . . so that I can send her screenshots on how to set messenger up. She actually doesn't have it on her system.

 

Update:

Problem solved!!!

I was able to contact "her" on my 5.1 and chat with "myself" ("her") on 8.5.

 

Yes, I'm now suffering from an identity crisis . . .

Additionally, the Edit Contact window shows "Status: Pending", and it has done so for the past couple of days.

That person can add me just fine, and the IM selection is there. And that person has sent me an IM, but I never get it. They tried sending me an IM with 5.1 (native to Windows), but that didn't work either.

I checked my "Privacy" option and indeed that person is listed as "Allow".

I looked at the FAQ solution at BigBlueBall.com here about hacking the registry (see no. 17, the very last one), but interestingly it only applies to versions previous to 8.5. I do have the "Share" item in the registry, deleted it, but still no joy.

I even tried the solution to delete the Contacts cache folders in Documents and Settings referenced in a post here.
Still no joy. I even rebooted after applying both the registry hack and that Documents and Settings deletion, and still nothing.

I've searched all over those WLM forums and Googled, and this issue seems like a pretty common problem, but I've been unable to see a solution for it besides the two that I referenced above . . . and as I've said, they didn't work for me.

I've also tried uninstalling (and it was complete, using RevoUnistaller to remove registry remnants too) and reinstalling, but no joy there either.

 

And I tried blocking and unblocking again.

Any other solutions out there I can try??