My inlaws just got a laptop(Acer) w/Vista home and built in webcam,they DL'd messenger but it is contantly shutting down are there any known compatability issus w/vista and messenger?

Not that I know of. I have Vista and I use Yahoo and AIM and have no problem with it. Now once or twice I did get kicked off yahoo, but that has stopped. They may try erasing the IM program and downloading it again. It could just be something screwed up with the download and it may fix it if they just down load it again. If they are using Yahoo, AIM, MSM, they should not really have any real problems. So I would try deleting it and down loading it again. Chances are it will work. Good luck! =)

there are no compatibility issues. i use vista with messenger and it works fine.

Try the one made specifically for Vista: http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php

Or you could try upgrading JAVA http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp

what messenger are you using? As far as i know, there shouldn't be any compatibility issues with MSN or Yahoo!