How to Uninstall Windows Live Messenger

Posted on August 26th, 2009 by Marck

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Whether you have your own home office or if you’re in charge of communications services in a large company, instant messaging clients are very important parts of online communication. While Windows Live Messenger is a useful tool, you may want to have a more open system to exchange messages in your office. Here’s how you can uninstall Windows Live Messenger.

Uninstalling Windows Live Messenger

One of the criticisms leveled against Windows Live Messenger is there is no quick way to get rid of the program from the “Add or Remove Programs” on the Control Panel. With a few tweaks, though, you can remove the program from your system.

To uninstall Windows Live Messenger, follow these steps:

Go to the Start Menu and click “Run”
Run this command on the prompt box (without the quotation marks): “RunDLL32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\Windows\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove”
Hit the Enter key.
When prompted to restart your computer, click OK.

Alternatives to Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger is a bundled application, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of options just because you uninstalled the messenger component of Windows. Here are other alternatives to Windows Live Messenger:

Third-party messaging IDs. Applications like Google Talk, Meebo, Jabber, and Yahoo! Messenger are popular messaging clients that have proven themselves to be robust alternatives to Windows Live Messenger.
.NET compatible clients. Your .NET passport is not uninstalled when you remove Windows Live Messenger. You can use open-source instant messenger clients like Empathy, Pidgin, and eBuddy to sign into your .NET account and access your accounts previously accessible through Windows Live Messenger.

Windows Live Messenger is perceived by some people as part of “bloatware” that makes the OS notoriously difficult for some users to maximize and optimize. With these steps, you can easily get rid of Windows Live Messenger, and opt for other more flexible instant messaging clients available.