Skype crashed

A month ago, my Skype became unresponsive. I rebooted my computer and was hoping that it would come back, but it didn't. The "Skype home" window remains blank. I contacted Skype tech help at Microsoft, gave a technician access to my computer, and she worked for 3 hours, uninstalling the program (even with RevoUninPro) and reinstalling several versions of Skype. It kept giving the same results, a blank "Skype home" widow. She eventually gave up, telling me that she would escalate the problem to a higher level of proficiency. She asked me to send her a sreen shot, and my contact info, e-mail and phones. Never heard from them again. I sent a couple of reminder e-mails, but no response. I'm hoping that someone on this forum may have some ideas on how to recover my Skype.
I'm using XP SP3 on a Lenovo laptop. Also, I can sign in with my account on other computers, so I assume that the problem is with my machine.

 

You could try Autoruns to see if anything unusual is running that might be interfering with Skype. Alternatively Process Explorer might throw something up. My own inclination would be in that direction since reinstalling Skype after a complete uninstall had no effect and, particularly, since the Microsoft tech was unable to get it going for you.

Failing that - depending on how important Skype is to you on your laptop - I'd be looking to either live with Skype not being available on the laptop or the blunt instrument technique - reformat and reinstall everything on the laptop from scratch (backing up all your data files first of course!!).

 

Hi clefrapper, Here's a reply from a happy chappy from the Skype Forum:
I solved it!
Went to control panel - view installed updates and uninstalled IE9. Windows 7 x64 went back to IE8 and the problem was solved. I dont care of being the 8, skype works, crystaldiskmark too, and I can see images again in WLMail 2012. I am happy!
http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-archive/blank-screen-on-Skype/td-p/139210
This another read from Skype Forum with a few interesting suggestions.
My feeling is that it could be related to MS Updates doing an install of IE9 on your XP OS. Cheers Neil.

 

As far as I'm aware Neil, IE8 is as high as you can go on XP.

 

For whatever it's worth, I have IE8, though I rarely use it. My usual browser is Chrome. I'll look at Retiredlearner's link when I have more time. Thanks to all who are helping.

 

Skype is DEPENDANT on IE being available. Neil.

 

One more thing, I tried opening my son's Skype account on my laptop, and it did the same thing. It opened but no "Skype home" and it became unresponsive after the first click.

 

Check if Skype has had a recent update that depends on a version of IE later than IE8.