Vista - no mic for live messenger/life cam

Hello.... I have Vista (duh) sp1. I'd been using my life cam with Live Messenger quite well for a year. Then suddenly 2 weeks ago, the other person can no longer hear me! There is usually 2 pictures on the screen; mine at the bottom, and theirs at the top. There is a sliding button you can slide up or down to turn the volume higher or lower. I can do theirs, but for some reason mine has been disabled, at the lowest setting. I suspect this is the problem.

I upgraded the life cam program, but it made no difference. I can't tell if there's an upgrade for the Live Messenger, or if that would really help. I'm so frustrated that I'm ready to chuck it all out the window and use something else besides live messenger. (ANY SUGGESTIONS??)

If anyone has ever had this experience before, and can help me figure out what in tarnation is going on, I'd really appreciate it. (And so would my folks, who like to see our 4 year old on the camera,,,which is really why we bought them to begin with!)

Thanks.

I'm not sure if I can help but here goes. Can you access your cam settings in your life cam and check the sound settings there. Beyond that, try an unistall and reinstall of life cam software. Now for a better program, Oovoo is the way to go. Go to Oovoo.com and check it out, real user friendly and easy to set up. Once loaded it just takes two clicks and your video chatting. Its really that easy. I use it and I'm a believer.