Shoutbox

It's too bad that you were not at the point where you originally began.

I had the exact problem that you did and fixed it by simply editing the manifest for MSN with Resource Tuner with the following sequence:
1.) A simple Google search will yield Resource Tuner, and, after installing, the msnmsgr.exe file is opened with Resource Tuner.
2.) The manifest option is expanded in the left pane to show the manifest for msnmsgr.exe as "1".
3.) Click on this manifest and then press "Ctrl+Shift+E" to open the manifest editor.
4.) At this point, all I did was isolate the code in the manifest that pointed to version 9.0.30729.1 and changed it to 9.0.30729.4148.

ie:
<dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity
                type="win32"
                name="Microsoft.VC90.CRT"
                version="9.0.30729.4148"
                processorArchitecture="x86"
                publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b"
            />
        </dependentAssembly>


BE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR msnmsgr.exe FILE BEFORE EDITING!