Remove MSN Messenger

Posted by Richard on

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_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftMessengerClientPreventRun
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftMessengerClientPreventAutoRun
      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%INFmsmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

      3. Uninstall the leftover installation information file by typing

        rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection BLC.Remove 128 %systemRoot%INFmsmsgs.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%INFsysoc.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.

      38 Responses to “Remove MSN Messenger”

      1. Kate

        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. Brian

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

      4. Pierre

        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

      6. Chris Vanschooren

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

      7. Dave Chriscole

        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. Sean

        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. Raider

        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. Luis Felipe Muziotti

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

      11. Cato

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

      12. Johnny

        This worked perfect!! I hated that POS thank you. I can now check my e-mail with out that blasted peice of crap 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. Dr Seuss

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

      14. Dr Seuss

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

      15. Gregory

        At DevHood.com, Oliver Aaltonen said: You can actually uninstall MSN Messenger. Open c:WindowsInfsysoc.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. Scott

        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. Garfield

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

      18. Liz

        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. iR1sH

        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. Rango

        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. amirek

        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%INFmsmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

      22. richard

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

      24. Pivik

        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_USERSOFTWAREMICROSOFTWINDOWSCURRENTVERSIONRUN 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.