Okay, so yesterday or the day before I got a thing for a windows update. I ran it, it was something about Genuine Advantage, I installed it. I have a legitimate copy of Windows XP.

After I reboot, Instant Messenger doesn't work. The program will open and I can send and receive instant messages, but the box in the IM window that displays messages is blank. The other person's buddy icon shows up as a red X.

I tried to run Windows Update again, but nothing shows up when I go to update.microsoft.com. I tried doing the retarded update process required when you go through Firefox, and it said it couldn't verify that I had a legit copy of Windows (as stated, I do--I have never had problems with Genuine Advantage checking that).

I go to run System Restore, and, of course, it's just a blank window. If I run it from the command prompt, I get an error message (something like "System Restore could not be executed. Reinstall blah blah.")

All of this is exactly the same in safe mode.

Is there anything I can do, short of reinstalling Windows? I'd reaaaally rather not do that, especially since the only software that I regularly use that is affected is Instant Messenger...THERE'S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY.

3/28/2007 8:18:08 AM

buy a mac lololol

3/28/2007 8:38:35 AM

reinstall im client? try another im client?

3/28/2007 8:40:27 AM

i would probably skip straight to 4 but you can try shit to see what works.
1) live cd virus scan
2) spyware scan in & out of safe mode
3) uninstall the windows update in question
4) format, reinstall

i couldn't use the system knowing something was fucked up and bound to fuck up even more - it's not just the IM issue if system restore isn't showing up either.

3/28/2007 9:44:59 AM

3/28/2007 11:32:51 AM