MSN Messenger Meltdown

Sunday, I spent some time on MSN messenger web-camming with Al. We prefer MSN to Skype because we simply get better quality. It seems that MSN can withstand poor internet connections much better then Skype.

Monday morning, MSN messenger was working fine, although I don't recall specifically using it for anything. I went to work and logged in remotely (meaning, using the MSN online messenger) so Al and I could chat a bit. This prompted me to log out from my home location (which I am used to and didn't have a problem with) and I agreed.

Monday evening I returned home from work, got into more comfortable clothes, and sat down at my computer to commence blogging and other online-related activities. I found at that moment MSN Messenger had an error message:

"Windows Messenger has stopped working. The program will shut down and we will notify you if there is a solution."

I rebooted, troubleshoot-ed (troubleshot?), and reinstalled.

Nothing.

I called Al who told me to do all of the things I'd already done. I then tried to repair it through Windows.

Nothing.

Finally I called my computer guru (who happens to be my ex) who accessed it remotely from his computer, ran through the same troubleshooting I did, and gave up. (Some guru, huh!?)

This morning, I still had no messenger and no other solution to try. I rebooted and reinstalled again (maybe it just didn't take the first time...ha ha). And then I tried it again.

(I was desperate.)

Finally, Al (who had already suggested this, but in my stubbornness of knowing what I was doing I ignored completely) told me to system restore back to Sunday when it was working just fine.

I did and it worked! I've been up and running for a couple of hours again and so far there have been no additional glitches. The true test will be when my Windows update runs again, since that is likely part of the problem.

In the meantime, though, I can talk to my man again. All is right with the world.