The Messenger Support Blog has today been updated adding further error code troubleshooting articles as many people have been getting hit with the 8xxxxxxx error codes when logging in with the newer versions since Windows Live Messenger 8.0.
Heres some links to step by step instructions which help fix errors you maybe recieving;
Hopefully these will solve your problems you may be experiencing with Messenger. Remember to check out the other articles at Messenger Support Blog relating to other error codes and problems relating to Messenger.
Just remembered about this emoticon ‘bug’ in Windows Live Messenger which occurs when you hover over the 
emoticon and the *-) emoticon in the Show All Emoticons Window.
Not really sure if this occurs with builds of Windows Live Messenger other than 8.1.0178.00, see for yourself
Anyway, look at the screenshot below to see what I mean:
If you’ve been getting errors when trying to sign in for the last few hours, it may be because of some service downtime. The service status page is reporting temporarily experiencing difficulty.
Sign In
The .NET Messenger Service is temporarily experiencing difficulty. You may be unable to sign in. Please try again later.
Last Update: 4/12/2007 3:00:00 PM Pacific Time (GMT -8:00)
As it says, just try again later. It doesn’t appear to be very widespread, I’m having no problems signing in and have the usual number of contacts online. But, traffic to this Web site has increased a little, so there’s definitely something going on.
Last September the same problem could be solved by changing the server which Messenger connects to, I’ve just tested it and it still works.
Update: Looks like I posted this shortly after the problem had already started to come right, I even missed the acknowledgment from Nicole at the Windows Live Messenger blog.
There have been many users having problems signing in for the last few days. Reports claim that Windows Live Messenger doesn’t complete the sign in process, instead just sitting there with the messenger sign in buddies continuing to spin until you cancel. One of the most likely causes is this month’s round of security updates for Windows.
Among all the posts for help in the newsgroups, Jimmymac posted (6th post down) explaining he fixed it by deleting messenger’s registry settings. Jonathan Kay created a .reg file that will automatically delete the settings for you, remove_msgrsettings.reg.
Before running the .reg file, completely exit Windows Live Messenger by right clicking the buddy icon near the clock and clicking Exit. Once you have run the file and clicked Yes, try signing in again.
One of the side effects of this solution is you will lose some customised settings, but hopefully you’ll find it’s worth it!
Leave a comment if this does or doesn’t work for you.
I’ve recently been exploring a bug in how WLM handles emoticons. So far to replicate the problem you have to flood your contact with the same emoticon.
Click the image to the right for full sized example.
After you’ve done this, if you hold down shift+enter (newline) for a long time you will randomly get new emoticons in the text input area. This has been replicated with version 8.0.0812 and 8.1.0068, with and without Messenger Plus! Live. It also seems to work with custom and standard icons.
Discuss this in the forums.
