Problems with closing AIM and cloning

[xXMaximumBassXx]

hmm... can't say that i have the same problem as him... but i do have another problem with the handy cloning of aim+2. after closing down aim completely, whenever it is reopened, it gets cloned. this resulted in 4 cloned versions of aim for me which each take up about 9.21 megs. is there a way to reopen aim+ without it automatically cloning? it gets kinda annoying deleting the cloned versions and still not being able to open up the program.

im runin win xp pro, aim 4.8... aim+ 2. i dont know if you need that info, or anything more, but just in case.

thanks again guys, and keep up the great work.

[Techneaux]

Yeah, what happens here is that AIM never really closes (without AIM+ running) when I have the "sign off when you close the buddy list" feature on. It disappears from the system tray, but if you do a ctrl+alt+del you still see it running, and therefore if you start AIM+ it tries to clone it again.

I've just turned off that feature and exit AIM by system tray menu/exit, but I do hope you guys can make a clone on/off switch in a quick build.

[Big-O Mark]

The closing bug is not a problem with AIM+ 2.0, but rather a bug in the latest AIM beta. It only affects users running Windows XP.

I run Windows 2000, and with the "sign off when buddy list is closed" option checked, when I sign off, the AIM icon remains in the system tray. For some reason, in XP the icon disappears. In both cases, AIM and AIM+ are still running -- it's just much more noticable in Win2k because you can still see the AIM icon in the system tray.

Here's a quick fix for this problem. When you want to close AIM, right click on the AIM icon in the system tray of the clone you want to close and choose exit. This particular instance of AIM and AIM+ will be completely shut down.

[Guest]

All I know is that AIM or AIM+ disappears from the tray when I go into a game such as Tony Hawk's Skater or whatever and come back into Windows. This may or may not be the fault of AIM+, I do not know...

[Big-O Mark]

Ryan and I have been thinking long and hard about the problems people have been having with clones. Here's the rundown on the situation:

There are only 2 ways to completely close AIM. 1) Right click AIM icon in system tray and choose exit. 2) CTRL+ALT+DEL and close AIM from the Task Manager.

If you choose sign off from the system tray icon, from the My AIM dropdown menu, or have AIM set up to sign off when closing the buddy list window, you are NOT closing AIM. You are signing off, but AIM is still running, and the little yellow AIM icon will still be in the system tray. Remember, signing off is not the same as closing AIM.

However, when using the latest AIM beta (4.8.2646) with WindowsXP there is a bug caused by the new AIM beta that makes the AIM icon disappear from the system tray when you sign off. It appears as though AIM is now closed, but as with any version of AIM in any OS, signing off doesn't close AIM. You will now have to CTRL+ALT+DEL to close AIM.

As for the problems with cloning:

If you are running WindowsXP with the latest AIM beta, you may be experiencing problems with clones popping up when it seems as though you're not running AIM because of the AIM bug mentioned above. This is an AIM bug, not an AIM+ bug! Just use the Task Manager to make sure that AIM is closed when you think it is.

If you are accustomed to signing off AIM as opposed to closing AIM completely, and then restart AIM to sign back on, this will not work with AIM+ 2.0 because a clone will start. If you sign off and want to sign back on, double click the AIM icon in the system tray rather than trying to restart AIM.

Hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion regarding cloning. Clones seem to be randomly starting because users are not completely shutting down AIM before they try to restart it. The bug with the AIM beta and WindowsXP is contributing a lot to this problem too, unfortunately.

[Big-O Mark]

AIM+ 2.1 now has a disable cloning option for those of you who were having problems with the automatic multiple instance feature. Hopefully there will be no more unwanted clones popping up now.