I have been using Gaim successfully for years now, and still use it on the Linux platform. Unfortunately, gtk's support for windows is not very good and due to some complicated bug in the gtk (some dll libraries shared by apps ported to windows from a linux environment called gnome) the Gaim development team has not been producing releases that use the newer gtk. Since I also use "the gimp" image editor, as well as the gourmet recipe manager, I must keep the gtk updated. That is why, after lots of trying to get them all to work together, I am abandoning gaim for windows. Even the portable version of gaim doesn't work with gtk 2.8 installed on my system. I am moving to the miranda im program, though I don't like the interface as much. I hope that some day the gtk for windows gets fixed!