Remove MSN Messenger…

Are you tired of seeing MSN Messenger pop up on your Windows XP system? As usual, in an effort to continue its course towards domination of everything, Microsoft has made it difficult to remove. But it is possible! The following method works in Windows XP Professional, but has not been tested on a system with SP1 installed. FYI, I’ve seen scripts that are similar to this, but fail miserably, automatically deleting other much-needed components! Better to do this slow and manually! As always, I am not responsible for the use or the misuse of this information; use at your own risk.

  1. Exit MSN Messenger by right-clicking the MSN icon in the notification area, and selecting Exit.
  2. Add the following registry entries, both with a DWORD value of 1:
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client\PreventRun
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client\PreventAutoRun
      1. Open a command prompt by clicking Start/Run, then typing “command” and clicking OK.
      2. Uninstall MSN Messenger by typing
        rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %systemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
      3. Uninstall the leftover installation information file by typing
        rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128 %systemRoot%\INF\msmsgs.inf
      4. Allow MSN Messenger to be displayed in the Add/Remove Windows Components dialog in the future (if it pops up again!) by typing notepad.exe %systemRoot%\INF\sysoc.inf and deleting the word “hide” from the line that starts with “msmsgs=”. It MAY be possible to skip to this step directly and perform the uninstallation directly from the Add/Remove Windows Components dialog, but that method MAY leave unwanted components and has not been thoroughly tested.
      5. Cross your fingers and reboot! You will probably get a message asking you to confirm the removal of some leftover files. Click OK.

      If you liked this, you might also be interested in:

      This rambling was posted on November 7, 2002
      and filed under Instruction Manual, Microsoft Products

      Responses

      38 Responses to “Remove MSN Messenger…”

      1. Response #1
        Kate (IP) on November 28th, 2002 at 12:52 pm

        Thanks so much for posting these instructions! I thought I would be stuck with those irritating ads forever. I’m looking forward to absence of messages about Fantasy Football, Nannies, etc…

      2. Response #2
        Brian (IP) on February 10th, 2003 at 10:01 am

        Thank you for setting this up so I can GET RID of the messenger al together again thank you - Brian

      3. Response #3
        Cathy (IP) on February 22nd, 2003 at 12:25 pm

        Thanks, This helps….alot!

      4. Response #4
        Pierre (IP) on February 28th, 2003 at 11:19 pm

        Hi. I have both MSN Messenger 4.7 and 5 on my system. I would like to remove 4.7 and keep 5. How can I do this? Also, if I have to add registry entries, where can I find instructions on how to do this? Thank you! — Pierre

      5. Response #5
        Shaq (IP) on May 6th, 2003 at 1:26 pm

        Cheers boss.

      6. Response #6
        Chris Vanschooren (IP) on May 16th, 2003 at 11:42 am

        Great Job and a good explanation too. I followed the instructions and it worked from the first time. Thanks. Chris (Belgium)

      7. Response #7
        Dave Chriscole (IP) on May 25th, 2003 at 4:27 pm

        Thanks for the instruction, every time I visit plug my XP machine into my friends network I get notifications of email delivery on my hotmail account, even though I have told MSN NOT to run in the backgound OR to auto start… I HATE THIS APPLICATION and it is giving me an internet presence when I have not requested it… I hope your instuctions prove to be the demise of this annoying M$ app.

      8. Response #8
        Sean (IP) on May 27th, 2003 at 10:02 am

        Omigod, I actually needed to do this. Big Brother is telling me the most efficient way to work again and (as a result of the moving from one building to another?) I find a bunch of stuff stuck on my machine that wasn’t there before (or wanted now). Not sure how to set a DWORD value of 1 and the syssoc.inf file doesn’t have a line starting with “msmsgs”. But the rest seemed to work fine on my Win2000 Pro machine. Of course, I haven’t re-booted yet…

      9. Response #9
        Raider (IP) on May 30th, 2003 at 9:06 am

        OK I fell upon this info and it sounds solid….I did it all and no eroor mesages so it worked out,rebooting now…feel good..yea..:-P

      10. Response #10
        Luis Felipe Muziotti (IP) on June 1st, 2003 at 11:02 pm

        Thank you very much for helping me to get rid of that fûçkìn’ messenger 4.7!

      11. Response #11
        Cato (IP) on June 4th, 2003 at 5:45 am

        Thanks a bunch, bud! Helps a lot to get rid of the mofo, especially as I’m running Trillian. :)

      12. Response #12
        Johnny (IP) on June 16th, 2003 at 3:16 pm

        This worked perfect!! I hated that POS thank you. I can now check my e-mail with out that blasted peice of çráp opening on me. Also, now I can rest assured that its not going to IGNORE MY FÙÇKÍNG COMMANDS WHEN I SELECT IT NOT TO AUTO START OR PLAY NOISES.

      13. Response #13
        Dr Seuss (IP) on June 18th, 2003 at 4:28 pm

        Worked a treat. That’ll show those joy boys at microsoft. Thanks.

      14. Response #14
        Dr Seuss (IP) on June 18th, 2003 at 4:29 pm

        Worked a treat. That’ll show those joy boys at microsoft. Thanks.

      15. Response #15
        Gregory (IP) on June 23rd, 2003 at 6:04 am

        At DevHood.com, Oliver Aaltonen said: You can actually uninstall MSN Messenger. Open c:\Windows\Inf\sysoc.inf (where c is your drive, Windows is the OS folder) Remove “hide” from the following line: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,7 Goto Add/Remove programs > Add/Remove Windows Components You should see an entry for MSN messenger at the bottom, allowing you to uninstall it.

      16. Response #16
        Scott (IP) on July 3rd, 2003 at 9:05 pm

        There is a much safer and easier way cause some may wanna use messenger again some day . Go to Control Panel then performance and Maintenance, then Administrative Tools. Then Computer Management, then services and applications, then services now go over to the right and scroll down till you see Messenger, right click on it and disable it. Done ,, get out. Scott Mitchell hope this helps

      17. Response #17
        Garfield (IP) on July 12th, 2003 at 7:35 am

        Great job!!!! you should get a Nobel Prize for liberation from the Evil Empire of M$!!!

      18. Response #18
        Liz (IP) on July 18th, 2003 at 7:54 am

        Okay okay look…I still can’t get msn to back off. Whenever I use interent explorer, a stupid window pops up about registeration…or, whatever for msn. I want to get rid of it, and I’m sure that if I get rid of msn messenger, it will go away. The window looks something like this: “1009901-msn window” At the bottom, it has a lil face, with username, and password right below. Argh! It happens all the time! The worst part is, I didn’t even do anything to make this thing happen! Please help me!

      19. Response #19
        iR1sH (IP) on July 23rd, 2003 at 7:00 am

        3 posts up is incorrect unfortunately. Stopping that messenger service stops the windows messaging service and is not related to Windows Messenger (it say so in the properties of Messenger in Services). S-C

      20. Response #20
        Rango (IP) on August 3rd, 2003 at 4:45 am

        It looks very easy - but still I have some questions that Im sorry to ask! Anyway! Could you make or send me a file that I can click on to add the above into the regedit? Cause I dont know how to add it my self :o( - and I dont know what the Drop 1 means… Im afraid to do something wrong here..so I would be happe if some of you would send me a file that does it for me.. I have both the msn messenger 4.7 and 6.0 installed and want to remove the 4.7 Thanks again..from Rango :o)

      21. Response #21
        amirek (IP) on August 5th, 2003 at 5:26 am

        Here is an EASIER way to stop MSN Messenger from popping up! Just copy the command below, and paste in into your RUN box, then restart your computer. IT WORKS!!!!
        RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

      22. Response #22
        richard on August 5th, 2003 at 10:46 am

        That’s simply step #4 from my instructions above, but you need to complete all the steps to remove all traces of Messenger. - RDL

      23. Response #23
        Willis (IP) on August 13th, 2003 at 2:04 pm

        Can these steps be done on a Win98 machine?

      24. Response #24
        Pivik (IP) on August 19th, 2003 at 4:55 am

        Or, the simple thing to do would be to rename msmsgs.exe to msmsgs.bak. You will also want to go into the registry. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\RUN and delete the key that contains the line msmsgs.exe. Everything in the RUN section runs at startup. you can also do this to prevent it from loading without renaming the msmsgs.exe. And if you are getting it to pop up in your email programs IE> Outlook/Outlook Express. Make sure that you go into your options and tell it not to load messenger. Not very difficult at all.

      25. Response #25
        Craig David (IP) on September 26th, 2003 at 4:51 pm

        Thats proper bo i tells thee!!!

      26. Response #26
        Doomer (IP) on October 7th, 2003 at 12:14 pm

        Thanks a lot! \o/

      27. Response #27
        Raz (IP) on October 19th, 2003 at 6:37 pm

        I don’t know what to say except: God bless you man! Thanx!

      28. Response #28
        Overhorde (IP) on October 24th, 2003 at 8:22 am

        Dude… you’re my idol… Been looking for a clean delete of that retarded program

      29. Response #29
        Joan (IP) on October 24th, 2003 at 10:11 pm

        what if it is Windows 98? what must I do to remove the MSN Messenger completely?

      30. Response #30
        Michael (IP) on November 2nd, 2003 at 6:22 pm

        I have a NT4 machine that when messenger is removed and all registry keys are deleted actually comes up at start up with an error saying that the msmsgs.exe could not be found, Does this mean that I have missed an entry?

      31. Response #31
        Kris (IP) on November 5th, 2003 at 1:03 pm

        Man, what a pain 4.7 was becoming. Thanks!

      32. Response #32
        steve (IP) on November 6th, 2003 at 3:10 pm

        I followed these directions pretty much blindly not knowing what they were doing (especially the runDLL32 commands) and now I’m having a lot of trouble getting Internet Connection Sharing to work. Is it related to this, and if so is there a way to reverse these steps once everything has been removed?

      33. Response #33
        Daniel (IP) on November 22nd, 2003 at 7:10 am

        Thank you so much!!! You’ve helped many people including me!! Thx again, mate!!

      34. Response #34
        Judy (IP) on November 29th, 2003 at 2:04 am

        My problem is the same as what Irish posted previously. (iR1sH from 68.7.223.241 on July 23, 2003 07:00 AM) Will the instructions remove the right MSN Messenger? Also, how do you do the DVALUE part? Add the following registry entries, both with a DWORD value of 1: How do I add the registry entries because under the Microsoft folder in REGEDIT, I don’t have a Messenger folder (I’m not familiar with registry stuff at all!)

        HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client\PreventRun HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client\PreventAutoRun

        Thanks and I hope someone can help me out. :0)

      35. Response #35
        LGT (IP) on December 5th, 2003 at 12:36 pm

        I believe you can mere remove the icon by clicking with the right button and go to options and uncheck “show msn” option. The icon don’t appear on the next starts (at least on french XP pro version).

      36. Response #36
        Ted (IP) on December 8th, 2003 at 7:13 pm

        What is a DWORD value of 1?

      37. Response #37
        Carol (IP) on December 16th, 2003 at 12:11 pm

        Never thought I’d say this….but I was fortunate enough to have a virus attach itself in my Start up area, and $40 later…the virus was gone and so was Messenger! Being a new puter user, I gotta ask, Isn’t it against some law to make it dámn near impossible to remove this crapola??

      38. Response #38
        Petro (IP) on December 17th, 2003 at 3:02 pm

        Thanks a million. This is a huge deal as I was about to through my puter throught the window because of that intrusive Messenger. I really like the Remote Assistance feature on Messenger, but find the annoyance of automatically logging in to be overpowering. Besides PC anywhere, is there anything else like Remote Assistance out there?