A friend contacted me recently asking for help. He was frustrated that Windows Live Messenger started with Windows, and that he was not able to find a way to disable the program from doing so.

Experienced computer users know how to remove applications from starting up with Windows. Inexperienced users on the other hand usually do not, especially since Windows offers more than one location to place links to programs that should be started with Windows.

It was rather easy to determine for Windows Messenger. The excellent software Autoruns displayed Windows Live Messenger in the Logon tab. It is possible to remove it from system startup by unchecking the checkbox of msnmsgr there. Be aware that the program requires elevated rights to make changes to the system, and that it will request a restart with those rights if it is started with standard user rights.

But there is another option to remove Windows live Messenger from Windows startup, one that may be better suitable for most users as it requires no additional program.

A setting to enable or disable startup with Windows is available directly in Windows Live Messenger. To configure it click the Options link in the sign in to Windows Live Messenger window.

The sign in options open in a new window automatically. Locate the setting Start Messenger when I log on to my computer and uncheck it.

Once the option is removed from the sign in options Windows Live Messenger will no longer start up with the Windows operating system.

Live Contacts View is therefor useful in situations where Windows Live Messenger might not be accessible, where contacts need to be sorted and accessed quickly and where contacts need to be exported into other formats for further processing.

The software program will automatically recognize the default Windows Live Messenger account and has an option to select another account just in case that is needed. This also might come in handy when running one Windows Live Messenger profile and accessing the contacts of another without having to switch accounts or running a software to run multiple instances of Windows Live Messenger next to each other.

Live Contacts View displays various information about each contact including nickname, email address, names or phone numbers. Some or all of the contact information can be exported into various formats including csv, txt, xml or htm. Live Contacts View is compatible with most Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

To install WLM Safe users need to install the popular Messenger Plus extension for Windows Live Messenger first and add the script then in the options of the extension. WLM Safe comes with several modules that protect all aspects of Windows Live Messenger. The modules are:

• Anti-Virus: detects and blocks infected links sent by virus in conversation windows.
• Anti-Phishing: detects and blocks phishing links sent by virus in conversation windows.
• Anti-Spam: blocks annoying spam messages sent by your contacts.
• Anti-Flood: detects flood attacks and block the authors.
• Anti-Freeze: block messages that make old messenger’s versions crash.
• Anti-Copy: notifies you if one of your Messenger’s contacts copy your Nickname.
• Anti-Bot: notifies you if you’re chatting with a Bot.
• Anti-Hackers: notifies you if you’re chatting with an Unsafe contact.

The security program for MSN Live Messenger comes with several additional functions that might be useful for some users. It is for example possible to reduce the memory usage of the program, clean its cache or take a look at all processes of the operating system. Other options include locking MSN Messenger from being used by other users and to prevent the uninstallation of scripts in the instant messenger.

Expert users might be able to live without most of these modules while beginners might be best protected if they enable all of them. WLM Safe (via JK Web Talks) is an interesting security program for Windows Live Messenger.

The new skin for Windows Live Messenger can be downloaded here. It is supplied as a .plsk file that can be double-clicked to add it to Windows Live Messenger. The new Windows Live Messenger skin adds many customization options to Windows Live Messenger. These changes can be divided into changes to the interface itself and to the visual display of Windows Live Messenger.

The Messenger skin provides the means to hide many of the buttons that are displayed in Windows Live messenger like the games, video call or voice clip button. It can furthermore move selected toolbars or buttons to a new location or align them differently in the instant messenger.

The second group of changes can be made to the visual appearance of Windows Live Messenger. It is possible to select different kinds of backgrounds for several windows including the logon, contact list anc chat window. Then different fonts and colors can be selected for various textual displays in Windows Live Messenger.

The skin provides the means to change the look and feels of Windows Live Messenger. It lists all the options in one window to make them easier accessible.

Windows Live Messenger Content Retriever (ConCon Retriever) is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that is compatible with Windows Live Messenger 8.1, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 but also the beta of Windows Live Messenger 9.

The software program displays the registered Windows Live users of a computer system and the different types of contents in a list. The file list is displayed next to that initial display containing all the files that are available to the selected Windows Live Messenger user.

A preview image of the content is displayed in the same interface as well. It is possible to open the content in the default viewer of the computer system or select a different application from a list of installed software programs.

A click on Backup will backup all selected contents of a user account with the option to restore the contents at a later time.

The settings can be used to access the contents of a different Microsoft Messenger installation on the computer system. Windows Live Messenger Content Retriever is an interesting backup utility for users who like to save their Windows Live Messenger multimedia files.

There is however on solution available where you only need to download the setup files once and can use them again on additional computers. You start by downloading the Microsoft Windows Live setup files from the official Windows Live website. Microsoft is actually providing the download tool for Microsoft Windows Live in two different versions. The file wlsetup-web.exe is the online installer with a size of only 1 Megabyte. This installer can be used to download only selected Windows Live applications like Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Messenger or Windows Mail.

The other setup file wlsetup-all.exe has a size of 134 Megabytes and contains all programs that can be installed. The download can take a while depending on the Internet connection though.

The full installer with the name wlsetup-all.exe from the Microsoft Windows Live website can be used for offline installations. All that needs to be done is to move the file to the other computer systems. This can be done with a network transfer, removable devices or burning it on a DVD.

If you have downloaded the other installer with the name wlsetup-web.exe instead you can do the following. Start the installer and pick the Microsoft Windows Live applications that you want to install. Those will be downloaded afterwards to the computer.

The files that are used for the installation will be stored in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Live\.cache directory. The installers will be located in hex encoded directories. Only one file per directory and they use names like writer.msi or messenger.msi which should make it easy to identify them.

Just copy those files over to the other computer and run the installers there. The Microsoft Windows Live applications will then be installed on the other computer without additional downloads from the Internet.