Webcam troubles

Yesterday I bought a webcam; I actually bought one both for me and for my father. The idea is that my parents and I will be able to, through MSN, see and talk with each other when I’m in England. My camera works just fine, even when using MSN – but for some reason my father’s camera doesn’t work on MSN. That is, it worked for 3 minutes and then suddenly the camera screen went grey, and after that we just can’t restart it, in MSN – it works fine otherwise. None of us are computer experts, and I’ve tried the few things I know to do (like restarting, reinstalling – and trying my camera on his computer and the other way around).

It really makes me curious about what could be wrong, because the thing is: we’ve got the exact same laptop, bought at the very same time, and we’ve got the exact same camera, AND we did the installation process together and installed it in the very same way. Mine works fine, his doesn’t. MSN keeps insisting that the camera is either not working properly or some other program is using the camera – my best guess would then be that there is some program installed on my father’s laptop that I haven’t got that is secretly using the camera – I just can’t find out which program. So, for now, we still haven’t been able to try out the whole seeing and talking through the internet thing – but as soon as we can get some expert to find out what’s wrong I’m sure we’ll get there.

I’m not necessarily sure if this webcam thing will be a blessing otherwise though, because if someone wants to video chat with me through MSN, now I will suddenly have to think about things like: is my make up alright, and my hair, do I look tired…. Could be a nightmare…. :-)