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 #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. :)

      2. 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.

      3. 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.

      4. 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.

      5. 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.

      6. 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

      7. 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$!!!

      8. 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!

      9. 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

      10. 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)

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