Can't log onto msn, windows live messenger

My wife was on msn the other day and it stopped working.
We can't log onto msn .
Msn explorer won't load, and live messenger won't sign in.
I have uninstalled them both cleaned out the registry and reinstalled them but no change.
I asume they rely on internet explorer settings as I can log into msn using firefox but not IE.
IE can't find the page but is ok on other sites.

I would rather not reformat but I am stuck.

 

Are you absolutely sure you haven't had malware on your machine? Friends of mine had problems after being attacked by malware. We never did work out the precise cause but it eventually recovered as different security and cleaning programs were used. (Would probably have recovered quicker if we'd known back then about that wonderful site, "Major Geeks"! ) You might do well to follow the malware sticky for what to do first and post your results.

If you have a Hotmail address, I suggest seeing if you can access Hotmail directly (www.hotmail.com) and in the meantime, you can try using one of the web-based MSN access programs such as ebuddy. Search for web messenger in something like Google and see if one of them will work for you. They don't store your conversations or things like winks but if you use MSN a lot, it's an alternative until you can fix the problem.

 

Sorry for the late reply.
I fixed the problem , I googled the error code 8004888d and found it was a common problem, there was a fix available at a microsoft support site.
Thanks anyway.