Is it possible to read old chat sessions back? My partner wouldn't mind giving his kids access to MSN to chat to friends but he'd like to be able to read the chats later on as a safety precaution. He's already discussed this with his kids and they don't mind, so it's not really a private chat for them at this stage. Buuttt, how does that work? Can you read old chat sessions later on again?
Thanks for your advice

One advantage of this I had not considered is the typing skills improve dramatically. My youngest grand child 'found' Skype and within a short time her fingers have become a blur. This can only be beneficial in her schoolwork in future years. Parental control needs to be diligent of course.

On the MSN page - go to TOOLS->OPTIONS->MESSAGES->MESSAGE HISTORY - then make sure "automatically save a history of my converstations" is checked. You can select where you want the messages stored also.

I think this is the only way to go with kids and social networking.

I have no problem with them being online, as long as I have access to what they are doing. If they ever change password without telling me or delete any history - the computer use it taken away.

If you want to do it right, you almost need some kind of monitoring tool and it needs to be stealthy (and the kids need to have limited accounts). There are probably programs that you can install that will do what you want, but you need to be careful with them because there's a fine line between something that stealthily and effectively monitors the chats and something that is a keylogger.

If I thought it was necessary to track my kid's chats, I'd probably use a Linux box as a dedicated router and monitor the traffic that went through it. That way, there wouldn't be anything at all on the PC that is being used and there would be no chance that it could be disabled from that PC.

Iowagirl wrote: On the MSN page - go to TOOLS->OPTIONS->MESSAGES->MESSAGE HISTORY - then make sure "automatically save a history of my converstations" is checked. You can select where you want the messages stored also.

I don't know what it is but I can't seem to find it. When I click on the little round green men (Messenger symbol) I get the box where it says 'please sign in' and there is a 'tools - options' in the top right corner but it doesn't give me any info as you mention above. Is this where I'm supposed to be looking?

It's so frustrating when you don't what you're doing, I just don't get it.

Iowagirl wrote: On the MSN page - go to TOOLS->OPTIONS->MESSAGES->MESSAGE HISTORY - then make sure "automatically save a history of my converstations" is checked. You can select where you want the messages stored also.

I've tried to do this but I'm sorry I still don't get it. Do I click on the symbol for messenger (the three little green pawns)? When I go there it asks to sign in, or at the top I can click ontools - options. But then I don't get any messages like mentioned above. Sorry to be such a pain, am I looking in the wrong spot? Or should I first get password of the kids and sign in? Or do I go to a website, not the sign in with the little green pawns?

Iowagirl wrote: On the MSN page - go to TOOLS->OPTIONS->MESSAGES->MESSAGE HISTORY - then make sure "automatically save a history of my converstations" is checked. You can select where you want the messages stored also.

I've tried to do this but I'm sorry I still don't get it. Do I click on the symbol for messenger (the two little green pawns)? When I go there it asks to sign in, or at the top I can click ontools - options. But then I don't get any messages like mentioned above. Sorry to be such a pain, am I looking in the wrong spot? Or should I first get password of the kids and sign in? Or do I go to a website, not the sign in with the little green pawns?

What is a user account
How to Create a Limited User Account on Windows XP

and make sure your admin account has a good strong non-sense password that you do NOT share, keep it in a safe location if you have to write it down, and definitely do not forget it!

I do not use msn messenger any more so can not help with that but here are a series of tutorials that may help
Tutorial

Yes the kids have limited user accounts, no worries there. And I will have a look at those tutorials thanks!