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…”

      Pages:[1] 2 3 4 » Show All

      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!

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