Remove or Install Windows Messenger

Microsoft KB article on removing messenger

January 30th 2002-Microsft has releases a knowledge base article (Q302089) on preventing MSN messenger from running on a windows XP machine. This article describes how to prevent Windows Messenger from running. By default, Windows Messenger is installed by Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition, and the user interface does not provide a way to remove or to uninstall Windows Messenger.

The information in this article applies to Microsoft Windows Messenger 4.0, Microsoft Windows Messenger 4.5, and Microsoft Windows Messenger 4.6 running on Windows XP Professional and Windows XP home edition based computers.

Want to remove MSN Messenger?

A lot of people want to know how to remove the MSN Messenger service from XP... here's how:
Locate SYSOC.INF in the \Windows\INF folder (hidden file and folder), Open it in Notepad and locate the line: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7 Remove the word "hide" from the line and save the file. >>>>You will now have an entry in add/remove programs. <<<<

If you prefer with XP Pro leave MSN Messenger installed, but tell Windows to never let it run.

If you're running XP Professional, you can use GPEDIT.MSC to prevent Messenger from loading. Otherwise, even disabling it in startup won't cause it to "always" not run. NOTE: Outlook, Outlook Express and some Microsoft web pages can still make it load.
• Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
• Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Messenger
• You can now modify whether it starts initially and/or whether it's to run at all.

Special Note this fix may slow down outlook when starting, that is because outlook wants to start messenger when it starts, the easiest and fastest way to disable messenger and still have a quickj starttime with outlook is to rename the exe file, located here c:\program files\messenger\msmsgs.exe, to something other than msmsgs.exe, such as msmsgsnew.exe.

Want to download and install Windows Messenger? Click Here

Tucson Arizona 520-272-2704

Home