MSN Messenger - something really weird!

ok never in my life have i had this!
i am a regular user of msn messenger, on every day, every hour practically!
and until about 2 hours ago, people's names wouldn't show the emoticons (if they had them)!
it would just have the bracket and then the letter/number then close bracket. so i made sure my messenger was up to date, uninstalled messenger plus and the plugins and uninstalled and reinstalled msn messenger, and now all my contacts have no screen names, but it just shows their address!!!
this is one of the strangest things i've encountered! i'm running a virus and spyware scan but nothing has come up as such yet!
if anyone has any ideas to this, please help!!!!

 

It's not a virus. It shows the peoples addresses cause you just reinstalled MSN Messenger. They have to add you to there contacts list again. I think it's something simple like that.

Are the emocticons okay now?

 

yeh, but people who are online still show up as addresses, this has never happened before i think something's gone wrong.

maybe i have to reboot after the installation i'll report back after the scan has finished.

and i wouldn't know if the emoticons are ok, because i can't see their names!!!

 

Oh, that is weird. Maybe delete a contact from your Messenger and have that same person you deleted delete you. Then add each other back into your contacts lists and see if it is still screwed up.

 

right well now my whole computer has become corrupt so i'm backing it up on my other computer and now going to reinstall. strange because i'm on msn on the other computer and everything' fine!!!!
weird

 

Your whole computer is corrupt!? The problem must not lie in Messenger alone then. I wonder what caused this?

 

something very weird, so i'm just about to begin the reinstall.... *shudders*

 

right well i tried system restore and my windows works but my msn messenger still doesn't display screen names!!!!