The free software program offers options to browse through all contact profile pictures independently from Microsoft Messenger.

Profile pictures can be saved to the local hard drive. Why would someone want to use a program like MSN Images? The profile pictures can for instance be used in other programs, for instance email clients or voice over IP software.

MSN Images is a small and easy to use application that is able to display the pictures of your contacts from Windows Live Messenger.

You will be able to browse through all the pictures of your contacts and even save them on your computer.

The application may need to be run with administrative privileges, that was at least the case on the Windows 7 64-bit test system.

MSN Images furthermore requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. The download is offered at the Portuguese developer website.

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.

Windows Live Messenger offers to save the conversation history. The setting is however disabled by default, and users need to activate it to have it saved automatically to the local PC.

Open Windows Live Messenger, click on your name and then on More Options in the menu that pops up.

Switch to History in the let sidebar and locate the Conversations group in the History settings.

Check “Automatically save my conversation history” to save the chat history automatically to the local PC. You may also want to check “Show my last conversation in new conversation windows” to see the messages from the last chat session.

The directory where the conversation history is saved to is in the My Documents folder by default. This can be changed to any other location on the system.

Storing the conversation history unprotected on the system may have privacy implications, as any user with access to the PC may access those chats. Options to avoid this from happening are to store the conversations in encrypted containers (using True-Crypt for instance.

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.

Windows users who open the Hotmail website in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer will for instance notice that Windows Live Messenger is opened automatically. This can slow down the startup of Hotmail severely with some users reporting that Hotmail did not work at all.

The integration of Windows Live Messenger, or previous messenger variants like MSN Messenger, is not a new phenomenon. The problem that Hotmail users face is the same, how to disable or remove Windows Live Messenger from starting with Hotmail.

Messenger is only loaded in Internet Explorer if Hotmail is opened. Other web browsers are not loading the instant messenger. One easy option is therefor to use a different web browser to access Hotmail.

But that’s not always possible. The integration of Windows Live is handled by add-ons. Disabling those add-ons ensures that Messenger is not loaded on Hotmail startup.

Here is how you stop Messenger from loading with Hotmail:

Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools > Manage Add-ons.

windows live messenger

A new window opens that displays a list of installed – but not necessarily enabled – add-ons.

Locate the two add-ons Windows Live and Windows Live Sign-In Helper. Their status is enabled by default. To disable the two add-ons do the following.

Left-click the add-on and select the Disable button in the lower right corner of the window. This disables the add-on in Internet Explorer. You can also right-click an add-on and select Disable and even select both at once and disable them together.

disable windows live

Make sure the status reads disabled next to both Windows Live and Windows Live Sign-in Helper. Close the add-on manager.

Hotmail will now open without loading Windows Live Messenger as well, this should speed up startup quite a bit, especially on slower computer systems.

In a statement for Microsoft, Michael Chang, Group Product manager for Windows Live Messenger said…

“While Messenger for iPhone is relatively new, for many connecting with Messenger friends on your mobile phone is not new. In addition to the more than one million iPhone Messenger users, there are over 24 million people who connect with Messenger friends from other mobile phones through a client application, their phone’s browser, or SMS. Along with Messenger Connect, Messenger IM in Hotmail, and the coming integration with Xbox LIVE, the new iPhone app is just one more way that we are bringing Messenger to you across the web and on your phone. We’re very excited about the new Messenger beta available now and thank you for being part of the Windows Live family.”

The release came as part of Microsoft’s new Windows Live Wave 4 launch, some aspects of which, such as the new Hotmail rollout have hit problems.

It was reported yesterday that so far only 1% of Hotmail users have received the update to the web interface they can use to access their email.  Other products, such as the beta for the new Windows Live Essentials Suite have gone smoothly.

1 Million downloads doesn’t necessarily mean 1 Million happy customers and we’ll be keeping an eye on the reaction to the new iPhone software from consumers.  So far though it looks like Microsoft is still firmly still in the game when it comes to Internet communications and social networking.

There are a few programs that can completely remove Windows Live Messenger from a computer system. These programs work in a similar fashion like the antivirus software removers that remove files and Registry entries from installed antivirus solutions from the computers system.

Here are the programs that can completely remove Windows Live Messenger:

Zap Messenger

Zap Messenger is a portable software program for the Windows operating system. It can not only uninstall Windows Live Messenger but also MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 5.x. Zap Messenger requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

With all this in mind, I developed ZapMessenger – the one step tool to completely remove Windows Live Messenger, MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 5.x. The first thing ZapMessenger will do is attempt to cleanly uninstall Messenger normally and if that fails for any reason, it will forcibly remove Messenger from the Windows Installer engine allowing you to reinstall at your leisure without hindrance.

Windows Live Messenger Uninstaller

Windows Live Messenger Uninstaller is another software program to remove Windows Live Messenger from the computer system. The portable program supports Windows Live Messenger and MSN Messenger installations which it can uninstall from the system.

Windows Live Messenger Deep Clean

The third program that can remove Windows Live Messenger is a tiny script which can be downloaded from Rapidshare. It will uninstall Windows Live Messenger and the Sign In Assistant including data and program folders, objects, contact store data, temp files and Registry keys.

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.

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.

There might be a situation where the contact information need to be accessed although Windows Live Messenger is not available or cannot be opened. The Live Contacts View program has been created for this purpose as it allows users to view the contact information if Windows Live Messenger is installed and close and even if Windows Live Messenger is not installed on the computer system at all but the contacts.edb file is available (this does require the esent.dll (Server Database Storage Engine) to be installed on the computer system though).

Live Contacts View is a portable software program that can be executed right after the download. It is compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows Live Messenger and will display the contents of the contacts database immediately if the file is available and not locked.

Contact information can be exported in txt, csv or html files to be processed or imported into other applications. It is also possible to copy the information to the Windows clipboard and paste it from there into another software program. Live Contacts View is another quality Nirsoft release.

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.

It can be quite frustrating to discover the root of the problem especially when the user wants a clean uninstall to install a newer version of the product again. Keith over at Techie Buzz discovered the Zap Messenger application which can completely uninstall MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Messenger from a computer system.

It solves all kind of problems that prevent the uninstallation of those products and is not limited to the ones mentioned in the first paragraph. Zap Messenger is a portable application that does require the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

The author is not listing the operating systems the software program is compatible with but it seems that it should run fine on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

aMSN is an open-source intant messaging client available for Linux, OS X, FreeBSD and Windows (if you dislike the proprietary client) which supports many features specifically on the MSN network which Adium and Pidgin do not.

The client can handle most features which WLM can, excluding MSN Zone Games. aMSN is much more customisable than Windows Live Messenger too, with dozens of plugins and skins being available.

aMSN lacks the ability to connect to networks besides MSN but if you are in Adium and Pidgin and a situation arises when you may want to use a webcam, aMSN does not take long to load and it is much quicker than booting into Windows.

Update 19th October: aMSN does not yet support audio conversations

It would be possible to use two different clients, for example MSN Messenger and Meebo to connect with two different user IDs but that would mean to cope with two different applications. A more straightforward way is offered by the MSN Messenger tool Polygamy (via Technobuzz) which patches MSN Messenger so that it can be run in multiple instances.

The software is able to patch various versions of MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger including the latest official releases and several beta versions of the Instant Messenger clients.

The MSN Messenger patch comes basically with two switches, one for enabling multiple logins and one to disable the feature again. All the user needs to do is to make the selection and click on the Patch button to patch the file.

Windows Live Messenger 9 displays advertisements that is changing frequently in the main program interface. This can be quite irritating at times. There is no obvious way to disable the advertisement from withing the Instant Messenger which means that the only way to get rid of it is to use third party tools.

Some tools patch the Windows Live Messenger 9 files directly which will be a problem when updating to a newer version. A far better solution is to leave the Messenger files would be one that would not tamper with the Windows Live Messenger 9 files itself and that is what Live Advert Removal (via Technix) does.

Above is a screenshot of Windows Live Messenger 9 with ads enabled. Live Advert Removal manipulates the Windows host file so that the advertisements cannot be loaded. It still means that a static Windows Live Messenger logo will be displayed at the exact same position but it means that no advertisement will be loaded from the Internet and that there will be no rotation.

The second screenshot displays the results of the host file addition. Using the Live Advert Removal software program is straightforward. It comes as a zip file that contains files to remove and to enable ads in Windows Live Messenger 9.

Experienced users can manipulate the host file manually for the same result. The host file can be found in system32/drivers/etc. The following line has to be added to get the same result: 0.0.0.0 rad.msn.com

Make sure to enable the option in Windows to see hidden and system files to be able to locate the host file.

Still, MSN Repair 2 (Italian) fixes problems and common errors in Windows Live Messenger and MSN Messenger. Valention kept the user interface simply which is really the best design for repair applications in my opinion. First, there is the button repair which repairs Registry settings, program libraries and files that have been altered since installation of MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger.

The second option is to correct specific errors by clicking on the Select Errors link in the program window. In total 13 common errors can be selected from the list which will then be repaired by MSN Repair 2.

Here is the list of errors that are fixed:

• Error 81000314
• Error 800b0001
• Error 81000370
• Error 80040111
• Error 800401f3
• Error 80048820
• Error 80048883
• Error 80072ee6
• Error 80072efd
• Unable to send / receive sounds (Plus)
• Incorporates Windows Messenger (version already installed on Windows)
• Not accessed but not by errors
• Unable to add contacts

Writer lets you publish content to your blog, Mail check all mail accounts in one place, Photo Gallery organize and share photos, the Toolbar is used for searching the web and Family Safety tries to protect family members. Installation does take some time, maybe because of the run on the Microsoft download servers.

Read More:

Windows Live Messenger Download
Changes between 8.1 and 8.5

The new Messenger 8.5 for instance is missing several features that the previous versions had included and Messenger Plus! Live adds them again to the software. Besides offering the build in functionality it also supports user created scripts and offers hundreds of them on the official website.

The main features of Messenger Plus Live are Tabbed Chats, Quick Text, Custom Sounds, Colors and Formatting options, Messenger Lock, Contacts on Desktop, HTML Chat Logging and Personalized Status. Several of them are pretty useful already but the real beauty are the scripts that can be installed as well.

It would be probably a good idea to start with the coolpicks category in the scripts directory which contains more than 20 preselected scripts chosen by the developers of Messenger Plus Live.

This is a great tool for anyone who is using Windows Live Messenger 8 or 8.5.

Update: Make sure you do not install the Sponsor by clicking on I refuse to give support..