Windows Messenger in Vista kills audio

hello again friends on NBR!

So far Vista hasn't been TOO bad of an experience for me but yesterday i ran into a stag...

My friend purchased a new webcam and wanted to try it out with me. I told him to use windows messenger for ease since AIM doesnt exactly make it easy to use your webcam audio and video worked in messenger but when i wanted to watch my downloaded videos/anime, no sound came out....i use media classic player and VLC to play videos.

so far, i've tried WMP and it doesnt worth either, but YOUTUBE does...wtf?

so i used system restore and went back to before installing messenger and its all good. to make sure it was messenger, i reinstalled it and tried to play a video and lo and behold the same thing happened, i get video but NO AUDIO from any program i use...

any help would be appreciated. i want to use windows messenger but i listen to more music/anime so im OK for now but would like to get help to resolve this! thank you in advance, friends!

btw im using vista home premium and windoes messenger live 8.1

 

try to install msn first, then reinstall your audio drivers...

this issue is very strange, seems msn is overwriting a dll that is used by your soundcard...

 

tried this and it didnt help, so i decided to restore all the way before windows messenger was even downloaded.....

really hope someone can find a solution for this....