hmm of course stopping the list would defeat the whole thing..

I mucked about with the whole thing and mIRC doesnt let you stop the channels list window completely

also I still got an error msg (im a bit rusty) with the refocus on the active window, even though it did return focus to the window that was active ..
Code:
;;;; chanlist
raw 321:*:{ window -hn "Channels list" | window -a %active }
raw 322:*:{
  window -ls @chanlist 100 100 325 200
  aline @chanlist $2 $3
  halt
}
raw 323:*:{
  .timerrelist 0 15 chanrelist
  halt
}
alias chanrelist {
  set %active $active
  clear @chanlist
  list
}
;;;;;;