What is up with the IM? All kinds of strange requests to be added?

If you were in a chatroom when all the requsts were received, you may have been hit boot program that sends out mass invites and instant messages. While extremely annoying, they do not put viruses into your PC. Only thing you can do if you are hit by one, is to close Yahoo Messenger by pressing CTRL ALT DEL (all together) once. That opens your task manager. Highlight Yahoo Messenger and click end task. If that won't work, you will have to turn off your computer by holding in the power button for 10 seconds and then restart your computer. You do not need to uninstall/reinstall messenger and it is a common problem in all chat rooms. There are a variety of Boot Programs created to send the Mass IMs/Invites or Disconnect you from Yahoo! Servers. Yahoo! will ban the IPs of those that use booters if possible but that won't stop people from using them, there are ways around everything.

Some ways to limit getting booted from chatrooms include, setting preferences to allow IMs from only people on your list,

disable audibles, IMVironments and don't allow file transfer, place any bot names from the booter on ignore.

You can also try YTunnelPro ( it's not free) http://www.ytunnelpro.com/

or you could use a 3rd party chat client.

http://chatauthority.com/ytunneltutorial for YTunnelPro tutorial

http://www.whiskeybentandhellbound.com/nwclnt.html for Chat Clients