Is MSN messenger allowed?

This might be a really stupid question, hence why I don't fancy contacting the IT guys in college about it, but are we allowed to use MSN messenger on the University network? I've been stuck in my room for days with Swine flu (I know, fantastic Freshers' Week ) and I could really do with talking to some friends from home.

If it is permitted (I've scoured the OUCS website and I haven't seen anything to say it isn't) then does anybody have an idea why mine is very obstinately not working? And how to make it work? I promise Rep (pitiful though it is) and a drink if I ever meet whoever solves this for me.

Two easy solutions!
1) Install the VPN client off'f the OUCS website, and register it. The VPN client isn't useful in most situations, but you can use it to get at course materials while at home, and you need it to make programs like Steam and (in my case, and probably yours) MSN work.
2) Get Digsby. http://www.digsby.com/ Useful alternative client which doesn't have as many functions as MSN (and its file transfers are awfully, awfully slow) but on the upside will work without the VPN, and can do Facebook chat too, making that considerably less painful.

Do I get rep?

Two easy solutions!
1) Install the VPN client off'f the OUCS website, and register it. The VPN client isn't useful in most situations, but you can use it to get at course materials while at home, and you need it to make programs like Steam and (in my case, and probably yours) MSN work.
2) Get Digsby. http://www.digsby.com/ Useful alternative client which doesn't have as many functions as MSN (and its file transfers are awfully, awfully slow) but on the upside will work without the VPN, and can do Facebook chat too, making that considerably less painful.

Do I get rep?

Not trying to put a damper on things, but they may take a dim view of someone using VPN to use Steam (presuming it's Steam for gaming), as it's still using the uni network for it.

Not seen any repercussions yet, despite buying (and thus downloading, although not all at once, that would probably raise eyebrows) the Unreal Anthology last term. Most of the time you only need the internet to log into Steam - the games run off your computer unless you're going multiplayer. I haven't seen them complain at doing that either (playing Exteel didn't incur any consequences), or playing in-browser games like Runescape, which a couple of my friends are into.

Sure, if you went to the guy who wrote the IT contract and said "I used your internet to download UT3/watch dozens of shows on iPlayer/procrastinate massively", he'd probably be fairly annoyed. In practice though, it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't put it past them to have a monitor or firewall in place that catches porn sites, although I doubt there's even one of those, as they never work properly and I've not experienced interference in any of the things I've used the internet for while I'm here.

We have MSN allowed, and skype, but not spotify.

There goes my free music supply.

EVERYONE (student-wise) in college is like "yeah, it's fine, as long as you're not ridiculous with your bandwidth"

That's pretty much most of New's stance on the matter... I think they only sit up and take notice if you start downloading, and I quote, "several gigabytes a day". At the other end of the scale, though, Merton are more restrictive, with a download limit (2GB a week IIRC? Anybody from Merton want to verify this?) and a firewall-type thing that blocks certain sites, like the one your school probably had. I hate those.

That's pretty much most of New's stance on the matter... I think they only sit up and take notice if you start downloading, and I quote, "several gigabytes a day". At the other end of the scale, though, Merton are more restrictive, with a download limit (2GB a week IIRC? Anybody from Merton want to verify this?) and a firewall-type thing that blocks certain sites, like the one your school probably had. I hate those.

Not quite.

I promise I did sit through the IT talk but my understanding was frankly embarrassing. So is Spotify a no no at New? Something tells me it may be P2P.

Spotify certainly isn't peer-to-peer. iPlayer is, but only the downloader, and the internet here's fast enough that you can watch stuff in the browser without any major problems.

According to Spotify's website, it is http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/option_to_turn_off_peer_to_peer?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=widget_spotify

(and explicitly banned by some Colleges).

Ye gods. I assumed it was central-server-type-stuff. We can use it here at New though. St Peter's allow it too, although I'm not sure about anyone else.