The errors you are showing are pretty standard. Any application that ties to a webcam gets exclusive control over it.
Quick fix
There is no real easy way to know what current application is using the webcam, but when most applications loose the webcam, they do not automatically reconnect. If I was you, I would go to Device manager and simply disable then enable the webcam which should release it from whatever program is grabbing it.
Solution
The real solution is a lot lengthier!
I would launch Device Manager again and go to the webcam, click the Drivers
tab then the Driver Details
button and make a note of all the files.
Now, download Microsoft / Sysinternals Process Explorer and try doing a search against these files, it should be able to show you what file/process is hogging the camera.
Next, use Microsoft / Sysinternals Autoruns and locate then disable (don't delete yet) the program from starting.
Next time you start your machine, hopefulyl there will be no problems and you can use any program with the webcam in which case, you can delete the entry that is disabled. If however there is a problem, reenable it, however you may be out of luck - in which case, please write in comments and I will try to help further.
1Does this occur when you freshly boot up the pc and then plug in the webcam? – Ivo Flipse – 2010-01-22T14:57:51.880
ivo: Yes. I get this error always. – None – 2010-01-22T15:02:38.517