set mirc to show whois in active (mirc 6.16, dont know about other versions)
doing a remote whois with 'whois nick nick' works fine and shows in active window,
but when you use anything else for the first nick, it will show in status window instead.

whois command (ircu):
whois nick, normal whois
whois anything nick, remote whois (ie /whois 0 nick)
whois server nick, requests whois from server (oper only on undernet/quakenet/etc)