Vista - Windows Live Messenger sign in woes

Heres an odd one for you all.

I'm running Windows Vista Home premium and have had no problems at all. However in the past 2 weeks or so, Windows Live Messenger has developed a signing in problem.

I have Norton 360 installed and the Firewall has allowed Messenger to do what it needs to, but it still won't sign in.

I have even disabled the firewall, but to no avail.

I have uninstalled and re-installed Messenger, still no good. I check the tools settings in Messenger and it shows that it is connected via my Router's wired connection.

Today I dumped Vista, formatted my drive and did a fresh install of Vista, and fresh install of all software, still I get the same sign in troubles.
I enter my user name and then my .net password, and it just says signing in, then after 5mins, sign in failure. My friend tried her ID and .net password, still the same.

Yet I can sign into the MSNetwork and my online 360live account no problem. Any ideas?

Hi Gazza AK47,

Here's your solution. Go to this link for details:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/70783-windows-live-messenger-sign-error.html#post346235

Hope this helps,
Shawn

You should probably also get a new anti virus program, Norton is pretty **** at stopping viruses and uses a lot of resources, i removed Norton from my computer and the difference in speed was instantly noticeable. I would recommend bit defender or kaspersky, all up to you though.