I have a Dell Laptop 1525 Inspiron purchased about 4 months ago. I installed Yahoo messenger and MSN messenger. VIsta would not let me use Yahoo messenger. The screen went black as I was typing a message and the computer shut down. When I hit the on button it is as if nothing happened. The chat window is still there and any other windows I had open before. As soon as I type a few words it happens again! MSN seemed fine.
So I uninstalled Yahoo Messenger and tried MSN only. Now I cannot use it either as the same thing happens. I also tried the Facebook chat and it does it too.
I call Dell support who were useless! They said I needed more RAM so I purchased 4 gigs. No change. I called back and now they tell me its a software problem that'll be $69 before we'll talk any further! I didn't pay it. I tried Microsoft as its obviously an OS problem and even though this is a new copy of Vista they won't support it free! I am very frustrated and I hope someone here can help me.

While trying to fix it, try pidgin
Just google it. It handles almost all protocols (Including MSN and Yahoo)

Hi
I don't know how to fix it so I'm downloading Pidgin. Thanks for the tip.
Witchy

Hi Again
It was a quick and simple download. I hope it fixes the problem. I really appreciate your help.
Witchy

What is that which was fixed?
Praise God, I have been of help!

hi there :)
Well I wasn't able to fix the vista problem but you gave me an alternative Pidgin to try in the meantime. I have no idea how to fix my laptop issue. I have no idea where to begin so I posted my issue that my computer shuts down like its going into hibernation when I am typing in a chat window for no reason.

That might be a virus. Try scanning for viruses and if does not help reinstall windows.

These ones are always difficult - made so by the machine shutting down. You can't rule out what nickguletski has suggested (for once!) and perhaps you should tell us what AV you use (hopefully McAfee) and confirm that you keep it up to date.

Frankly I wouldn't p*ss about. I'd try once to find out whether or not I have any Malware with both McAfee and AntiMalwarebytes software. I'd give the clean-up one chance, clean the registry with RegCure, re-install MSN Messenger and see what happens.

Depending how I felt, I'd possibly go back to a System Restore point when I knew it was all behaving properly.

If these options produced no results, I'd restore my hard disk to factory condition with the Dell provided utility, reinstall McAfee and move forward again.

Hi, Great advice! Thx. I paid for AVG but will try regcure as you suggested. I never thought of a virus.

RegCure won't fix a virus - it'll clean up lurkers in the Registry. Let us know what the AVG scan reports. The best tool is Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. A full scan will take at least a couple of hours but this is the tool of choice used by the virus busters on Daniweb (and elsewhere).

A virus/Trojan shouldn't have accurred if AVG is alive all the time and kept updated. That's why I say I wouldn't p*ss about - I'd very quickly restore my system from a restore point and if that failed go to the backup factory image and move forward from there.

Thank you so much Suspishio. You've been very helpful. I paid for the Regcure and there were 724 items for it to fix. AVG is supposed to update automatically but I'll run a separate scan. I will create a restore point and as suggested if that doesn't work I'll do the factory image.
I will let you know the results of my scan. I should have this done by this evening.
Have a great day :)

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