I have being help a senior who has been using her computer in the most simple form - Sending email and using Skype.

Windows Live mail is configured with Email source is configured for IMAP to local Telco ISP.  And it worked flawlessly until recently.

When opening Windows Live Mail all the current e-mails are there because the mail component is still there.  Mail items cannot be opened and we cannot click on the reply button, but you can forward e-mail.  When you do new e-mail, a new message box appears but clicking on the TO in order to select contact do not work.  Selecting New Contact from the menu, never shows a the Contact dialog box. When you click on the Contacts on the left side, nothing appears.

When you Open a message the error "A problem occurred while trying to open this message"  (ya, that very clear error message)

It was working up until either Skype was automatically update or updated when it was used that day from version 6 to version 7.  At that point the Windows Live Mail stopped working.  And as best I can determine, the problem is because of the upgrade to Skype.  
I upgraded Windows Live Mail from 2011 to the current version Windows Live Mail 2012, but that did not fix the issue.  
I did the repair Windows Live Mail which a lot of people reference as the corrective action, but that did not working.  
I uninstalled, rebooted and reinstalled Windows Live Mail, but that did not work.

I use WMUTIL to repair the database.

I deleted the users settings "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindows Live Mail" and settings for Windows Live Mail directory and the c:usersnameappdataLocalMicrosoftWindows Live Mail  and I still can not get to the contacts settings.... 

So the root causes appears to be the combination of Skype 7 and Windows Live Mail 2012 around the contacts.  Anyone heard of the problem? 

I'm pretty good at computers but this one has me stumped...  And the senior is 1/2 hour away from me, so trying things out is not easy, but so far I have 4 hours into this problem...

Thanks for any help