Greetings Marg,
You can completely remove Windows Messenger, but if you do, you will be preventing Remote
Assistance, Whiteboard, Application Sharing and any other applications that utilize Messenger
from working (or loading without problems). Instead (and this should solve your problem),
you should simply disable it. To do so, open it up, click Tools, Options, Preferences tab
and unchecking 'Run this Program when Windows starts' or 'Run Windows Messenger when Windows
starts' (depending on version). As well, you can disable it further by going to Start,
Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components on the left, uncheck
Windows Messenger in the components list and click Next >. Note: this is only available if
you've installed Windows XP Service Pack 1 -- if you haven't, visit
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. This won't remove Windows Messenger, but it will let it
stay out of your way.
However, if you really want to remove it completely, for Windows Messenger 4.7, do the
following -- in most cases if you're seeing the "file cannot be found" error while doing
this, you're probably typing it incorrectly, make sure that you do it exactly (or simply
copy/paste it).
Close down Messenger if it's running (right click the messenger icon in the notification
area/system tray and click close). Then click the start button, then click Run and type in
(copy-paste if you like):
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
Then click OK.
Messenger will then be uninstalled. For more detailed instructions and screenshots, go to,
http://messenger.jonathankay.com/problem.aspx?ID=7
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources -
http://messenger.jonathankay.com