Error 80040200: Msn Live Messenger unable to connect fix

Every time I put my laptop (with Windows Vista Business) on hibernation, sleep or just lost internet connection, my msn or live messenger will not connect. Sometimes it will work by just killing the process and restarting it. However that is such a pain, that I will go days without using it. Other I will need to reboot the laptop, that was worst.

I tried the following instructions from this blog post:

1) Close Messenger. Go into Task Manager and ensure that the “msnmsgr.exe” process is not there. If it is, kill the process.

2.) Navigate to C:\Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts and delete the entire contents of the folder.

3.) Restart Windows Live Messenger.

If that works for you great, no more error 80040200 for you. However if you are stuck in step two, because you can’t delete all files then continue reading.

The reason I got stuck: another process was using the files you can’t delete, one of them being contacts.edb. To find out which was using the file, I used the Process Explorer. Run it and then press Ctrl+F or go to Find and click on “Find Handle or DLL” button. Then you will have a pop up where you write the name of the file contacts.edb you can’t delete, as shown in the image bellow.

Instead of downloading the Process Explorer just try to find the process wlcomm.exe in the Task Manager. If you can’t find it, then try using the Process Explorer to find which is the process giving you trouble.

Once you find the process kill it, delete all the files and restart the MSN live Messenger. If you got any questions drop them in the comments and I will be back to you.