I have met up with Drizzt & the rest of the gang after leaving the underdark, when a keep messenger appears. Unfortunately I keep getting the "messenger appears busy" or "not allowed to initiate dialogue" message. Any suggestions? I already have the latest Baldurdash and Bioware patches installed.

This is a common bug among the windows versins ob BGII, especially winXP. It is very odd since you do have the official patch installed, but I would recommend re-installing the official patch. If that does not work, let us know.

a true crow

Is this messanger Melchar Harpell (Spelling??). He comes to collect any of Drizzt's items or his friends' items if you have taken them, however, he is bugged. He cannot talk to you, so there are 2 easy solutions to this.
1: Drop all of Drizzt's items and his friends' items if you have them and he'll go away,
or
2: use control-q on Melchar Harpell and when the screen comes up asking which party member you want to remove, remove Melchar Harpell and he leaves you alone.
I am not positive what you are talking about though since you didn't say if you have gone to Bodhi yet or not, so I'm not sure what 'messanger' you're talking a bout. Have you fought Bodhi yet?

The reload of the fix patch did the trick. Also, the messenger was from the De'Arnisse keep, not the Harpell looking for Drizzt's stolen items. Thanks for the quick and helpful responses.

I run SoA on WinXP, and yes, that does happen to me a lot. What you can do is leave the area then come back in and if they are supposed to talk, they will talk.