This question is directed to anyone that has had the same problem as me but found a solution:

When I go out of my room I often leave the internet running, with MSN Messenger on. I made a program in VB that automatically replies to anyone that IMs me when I'm out. However, this uses a timer that ticks every 10 seconds, and it isn't uncommon to find that the program has crashed. I've experienced this problem before with the VB timer control when I made a motion sensor program for my webcam. Is there a way I can put together a few API calls (GetTickCount, Sleep, etc.) to simulate a timer, though with less chance of crashing my apps.

Cheers in advance,

Sam