I'm not really sure what is going on. But I'll try to explain as clearly as I can.
Earlier today, around noon my time, I was speaking with Nimrod on MSN. He had disappeared, and reappeared sometime later. He said he had to reboot because he had installed a new version of MSN (upgrade or downgrade?) and he could use Sharing Folders once again. I started to continue the conversation with him, but when Nimrod was trying to type in a message, my computer rebooted.
Startled me, but nothing I haven't seen before. With my 80 GB computer this became a common occurance. So anyway, the computer loads back up and I get a a message stating that a serious error had occurred. I decide to run HijackThis just to see if I had a certain entry that I have been told, many times, causes reboots. Sure enough I did and removed it, thinking that is the end of my problem.
I get back on MSN and once again try to speak with Nimrod. A few seconds later, the same reboot ocurred. I load the computer back up and the same error message comes up. I became supicious. Both times, when the computer rebooted, I had Nimrod's IM window open. I start to think that something with Nimrod's MSN is messing with my computer, but I'm not so sure because it seems weird that that could be causing any problems.
To figure out if something else was causing the problem, I first run Ad-Aware and Panda. I don't find anything suspicious there. I run EasyCleaner to see if anything suspicious appeared in the Registry. Nothing out of the ordinary. I also run Disk Cleanup to free up some space. After the scans picked up nothing out of the ordinary, I start to test a few programs one by one. I test Opera, AIM, Yahoo, and a couple others. No error occurred. No reboot happened.
I then test MSN. I had expected it to reboot not long after I sign on, but to my surprise, nothing happened. The program loaded up just fine with no problems. For the next several hours, I was able to have conversations with a few other people on my buddy list without incident. To be on the safe side, I temporarily blocked Nimrod until I felt ready to test his IM window.
When I felt ready, I unblocked Nimrod and sent him an IM. I went away to the kitchen to get something to eat. I returned only seconds later to find the computer had, indeed, rebooted. This confirmed my suspicions. Something about Nimrod's MSN is causing my computer to reboot. It only happens to me when his IM window is open. It is not just MSN that crashes. It's my entire computer. A complete reboot.
I had to block Nimrod once again, but not because I am angry with him. It is just to protect my computer from another reboot. I am in no way blaming Nimrod for this. I am very confused as to what is going on. Could he have gotten a corrupted version of MSN and that is causing the reboots? Maybe there's something wrong with the Sharing Folders? I hope to resolve this problem soon. I didn't want to block Nimrod, but until I can figure out what is going on, I had no choice.
EDIT: I almost forgot to add this in. Nimrod, when you see this, could you answer this question for me: What are you doing just before I go offline? Were you typing a message? Were you trying to send me something in the Sharing Folder? I'm asking this because maybe it can help identify the problem.