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I am using Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop from the last is 10 months. It has got this integrated webcam. The webcam worked perfectly fine. But from the last few days it has stopped working. It displays this error message "video preview can’t be created. Please reconnect your camera". This always happen when I used the webcam center (software of webcam) and msn messenger. I tried using it with yahoo messenger and to my surprise it is working on it smoothly. I don’t know what to do. Any suggestions?
I am not 100% sure what will be the exact problem but as you said this trouble started from last few days only, I think your system must have been infected by some sort of virus. The virus must have corrupted some of your files. Scan your laptop for virus. Please never forget to keep the virus database updated. If you detect some then you have to Uninstall and reinstall the OS (which ever Windows version you using).
Since you have got an integrated webcam and it is asking you to reconnect your camera, I think there is some problem with your webcam drivers. Navigate through the following path: Click on Start button on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen and then Control Panel >> Device Manager >> Hardware >> Webcam and delete it. You can also do this by another way. Right click on My computer icon in your desktop, a drop down list will appear. Go to Properties. Then click on Hardware tab. You will find a button called “Device Manager”. A new window will appear when you click on it. Search for webcam and delete it. After deleting (by any of the two methods) restart your windows. It will automatically detect your cam and install the correct driver.
I would suggest you to download and install the latest version of DELL Webcam Center from DELL’s official website. You can also try to uninstall and reinstall the driver for you Webcam. And as you said it’s working with your yahoo messenger but the problem occurs only not with software and msn messenger, you can try to download and install the latest version of MSN messenger from its official website. And even if this step doesn't resolve your issue, I would finally suggest you to contact the nearest Dell service center for better support.
Hey I also faced this problem sometimes back. What helped me out overcoming this issue was doing the system restore to a date on which you think your webcam was working fine. Remember that anything else you installed after that date will also be uninstalled and lost. So it is better you create a backup for all your data. You must have installed or unknowingly updated something that must have caused this. You can do the system restore by navigating to the following path: Start->All programs->Accessories-> System Tools -> system restore. Hope this helps you. Good Luck.