How to remove ads from Live Messenger

By Nick Mead on 29 September, 2008

Live MessengerThere's many things that annoy me about Windows Live Messenger but nothing more so than the advertisements that scroll the bottom bar. Invariably, they're of no interest to me whatsoever, they make the program more bloated and if you click on them accidentally, you end up diverting your browser where you don't want to.

There's no way of deactivating this within Live Messenger itself so the only thing for it is to use Live Advert Remover (formerly known as MSN Advert Removal) which blocks all advertisement banners from being displayed in Live Messenger. It works with all versions of Live and MSN Messengers and you need to run it only once to "patch" your system.

Live Messenger Advertisement

In fact, Live Advert Remover doesn't do anything special - it just modifies a script in your host file that you could do yourself but it's a little bit tricky and much easier to use this program. Note that Live Advert Remover does not make the default Live Messenger banner disappear - the banner will remain intact, but it is never replaced by a commercial advertisement. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Messenger Plus! either.

Comments

  • Eric Gurhaimer Eric Gurhaime<br />r

    This a short and quick how-to on removing those annoying ads at the bottom of Live Messenger main window. Lets get started.. Go here: http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/ Download Resource Hacker ver. 3.4.0 (Zip File 541kb). After unzipping the contents open ResHacker.exe. Open in Resource Hacker (File -> Open…) msgsres.dll located in (in most cases): C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger Click on View -> Find Text… on the menu bar. On the “Find what:” field put in: <Constrainer layoutpos=top ID=Atom(SSConstrainer) Layout=FillLayout() Change layoutpos value from top to none. The line should now look like: Save) Open Messenger. Enjoy your now ad-less version of Live Messenger!

    • Sent on 27 Oct 2008
  • coqdorysme coqdorysme

    Could you do the same kind of thing with the search bar and the contact-search bar? Using ResHack?

    • Sent on 04 Jan 2009
  • Chris_Taylor Chris_Taylor

    Hi - does this work with Windows Live Messenger 9 ?

    • Sent on 24 Mar 2009
  • Sud Sud

    http://dotnetwizard.net/live/remove-ads-from-live-messenger-without-patches-method-3/ Should work irrespective of versions

    • Sent on 26 Jun 2009
  • PSP PSP

    For remove web search bar use ResHack and 1. find 2. change layoutpos=bottom to layoutpos=none 3. compile 4. save 5. run messenger

    • Sent on 03 Feb 2010
  • PSP PSP

    find Element layoutpos=bottom padding=rect(8,0,8,8) layout=filllayout() ID=Atom(ai231)

    • Sent on 03 Feb 2010
  • james james

    doesnt work

    • Sent on 02 May 2010
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