UAC: (to check, click start, control panel, user accounts and family safety, user accounts, turn user account control on or off. If it’s off, the box will be unchecked. If it’s on, you will get a popup asking if you want to continue, and then you will see the box is checked)

STEP 1: Uninstall AIM 6.5; you do not have to remove your preferences when it asks, click no - do not delete them

STEP 2: System Restore to the first point you can find before AIM 6.5 was installed/you started having problems. Click Start, type “System Restore” into the search box, click System Restore when it appears, then go through the process. NOTE: You do this at your own risk, please research more about System Restore if you do not know what it’s for or what it does.

STEP 3: Create another user account, make it an administrator, VERY VERY IMPORTANT!!! if you try to enable UAC on the account you have now, you could screw up your computer, only able to logon through safe boot, so make a whole new user account with administrator priveledges.

STEP 4: Restart the computer and log onto the new account. Make suer UAC is turned ON!! (user account control). To do this, read the blurb about UAC before step 1.

STEP 5: Install whatever version of AIM 6.5 you would like: http://filehippo.com/download_aim

STEP 6: Restart the computer and log onto your normal account. AIM 6.5 should be there in C:/Program Files and should work correctly, without any networking issues or sound issues or any other of the multiple symptoms of this problem.

STEP 7: Delete the other user account that you created.

That’s it. It worked for me. If the problem persists, do another system restore back to the point you had before. Good luck.

Now looking through our message boards and Microsoft’s, there seems to be a correlation between the network issue and sounds. It also seems like some people are having success with System Restores, of course that is not acceptable as a solution. As I get more info, I will share it.