Its possible that antivirus software corrupted my mirc client, however, I did not have any antivirus software on the machine, and I definately NEVER run Mcafee because I am not too fond of that virus scanner. I did notice however that if I install mirc BEFORE the latest MSNmessenger, that it goes corrupt.

In the meantime, to solve my problem, I have resorted to re-installing winXP and making a ghost image this time...hehe. Saves tons of time when i have to reinstall.

Thanx Talea, for your responses, they are much appreciated.