Windows 7: Unable to sign in to WLM

I should have mentioned about this problem as I had the same thing happen after the repair install, here's how you fix the problem, exit MSN, go to:

• C:/User/Your user name/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/MSNMessenger/
• C:/Users/Your user name/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsLiveContacts/

and delete the contents of these folders and sign on, or least that's what I think I did, better just backup those files in case I was wrong but I am 90% sure that's all it was.

Just wanted to add this for future reference as I recently reinstalled Windows and had a problem with messenger again and none of the other steps in this thread or most of the internet helped so I really don't want to loose this very important step to fixing this problem that I have spent hours trying to find the solution for.

You need to run the Command Prompt as Administrator, then type in: netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

That's it, simple as it sounds that's all it takes, now what I reallly want to know is why Microsoft hasn't implemented an update to fix this little problem.

I deleted the contents of that folder but its still not connecting.

So its the repair job thats fooked it up.

I also deleted the contacts from my contacts folder as well and deleted the MSNMessenger Registry Key folder before I deleted the contents in Roaming.

I was trying everything to get MSN working again uninstalled everything and reinstalled everything, still no good then I looked at the troubleshooting guid that MSN has for messenger and there alot of error codes but not the exact one I was getting so any error codes that related to sign in problems, I tried and the last one I tried was the one I told you about first, although the actual error code I was geting the info from only mentioned deleting your Email adreess folder but when that didn't work I just deleted the whole lot.

Still not working :/

I think I may have also deleted the files out of C:/Users/Your user name/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsLiveContacts/

I don't know if you guys tried this yet but here goes;

Locate the folders below and delete all the files and folders inside them.
C:\Users\<Windows login name>\Contacts\ (delete all files/folders in here)
C:\Users\<Windows login name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts\ (delete all files/folders in here)

If you can't see these, you'd have to enable show hidden files and folders and clear the Hide extensions for known file types check box.

Try to sign in to Messenger

If you have AVG 8.0+ software’s Web Shield component

In the AVG User Interface double-click on the Web Shield component
Switch on the Instant Messaging tab
Uncheck the Instant Messaging protection option
Click the Save Changes button

Try to sign in to Messenger again

If the issue persists please try to deactivate the Web Shield component completely. If it’s still not possible to connect to the Windows Live Messenger service and the AVG Firewall component is installed in the AVG program, please check its settings.

Hope this helps

Swarfega, what kind of changes did you do last night before you couldn't sign in anymore?

weee finally works! I deleted those Windows Live Contacts files as you suggested. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

@airbot: i did a system repair job from the dvd as there were other issues that needed fixing.

Good to hear, I knew we would get there in the end, shame we still don't know if any of the other things make a difference although now I think about it, that was the last thing I tried so that was probably all it needed LOL.