Click the start orb in the Windows taskbar and type in programs and features in the search form, or click on Control Panel and then Programs and Features. This displays a list of installed programs. Locate Windows Live Essentials, right-click it and selected Uninstall / Change from the program list.

Why Windows Live Essentials (or the recent Windows Live Essentials 2011 which is currently the latest iteration of the messenger) and not Windows Live Messenger? Because Windows Live Messenger is part of Live Essentials.

The click on Uninstall / Remove spawns the uninstall or repair Windows Live programs window. Select remove one or more Windows Live programs.

This displays a list of all Windows Live programs that are installed on the computer system. Place a checkmark in Messenger, which is Windows live Messenger and click the Uninstall button afterwards.

This displays a uninstalling programs progress window. Press close once the operation is finished. This should have removed Windows Live Messenger from the system.

There are however cases where users report that they cannot uninstall Windows Live Messenger using the Windows Live uninstaller.

Those users can download the free program WLMUninstaller to try and remove Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger from a computer. The program has not been updated for a while, and it may be that it does not work anymore with Windows Live Messenger 2011. This should therefor only be used as a last resort if the standard uninstallation of Windows Live Messenger does not complete successfully.

The program can be used to uninstall the initial version of Windows Live Messenger from the Windows operating system or uninstall another version of the instant messenger even if it is broken or otherwise damaged.

WLMUninstaller is pretty easy to use. Only one button needs to be pressed to uninstall Windows Live Messenger from the computer system.

The program will start uninstalling Windows Live Messenger once the uninstall button has been pressed. It will display information regarding that process in the interface.

Windows Live Messenger Uninstaller is a tiny portable software program. It can be downloaded straight from the developer’s website.