Forced to use The New Windows Live Messenger You Hate?

By Luke

Apparently, Microsoft feels the need to continually tweak the visual presentation of their popular Windows Live Messenger. Every new version you’d find drastic changes to the visuals of the application however you don’t really see many changes in the features department apart from that. However, based on reviews from the user community these changes have been reacted upon with mixed feelings.

Personally I don’t mind the visual improvements (at least that’s what they’d like to call it) however I’d admit after they changed it completely more than a couple of times it was getting a bit annoying. Also, as a new version is released the Messenger forces you to update your version to use the application. Last time I checked the update process requires you to have a lot of patience downloading multiple non-required components and filling up the registry for no reason and no thanks to web 2.0 spoiling us with snappy processing and results we don’t really have a lot of patience left in us.

So instead of having to deal with the painful update process and the continually changing interface below I’ve explained a simple trick to use any messenger version you prefer permanently.

This explanation is for Windows XP and above Operating Systems. Older versions of Windows doesn’t require you to update your Windows Live Messenger.

Download a version you prefer

A great place to find older Windows Live Messenger versions is FileHippo, or you might already have an older version of Windows Live Messenger then proceed to the next step. (Make sure it’s an offline installer)

Install It

It would be preferable to install the application without being connected to the Internet even though it’s an offline installer as it might attempt to check for newer versions and you are back to where you started.

Navigate to the installation folder

Go to the folder where the Windows Live Messenger was installed. (Usually C:/Program Files)

Find the main EXE and go to the properties

Go to the compatibility tab

Tick ‘Run this program in compatibility mode for’

Select Windows 2000 and apply the changes.

You should now be able to use that version of Windows Live Messenger without being forced to update to the latest version. If you run into any trouble leave a comment below.

Thanks to Vigar from the chelsea blog for this tip.

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About The Author

Luke is a Software Developer and the main writer behind Computer Realm.

5 Comments so far

James November 11, 2009 7:56 pm

Hei!
You are great it works for me! haha
Thank you so much

Reply
dimy January 12, 2010 12:56 am

hey, i did the steps ….
but, all of my contacts list was deleted??!!

Reply
Tom January 21, 2011 2:55 pm

Ha ha, brilliant ! Another victory for the rebel alliance !

Thanks

Reply
Anonymous March 14, 2011 2:46 pm

I did it and when i open it says this file is having a problem and to troubleshoot or retry and also that firewall may have blocked it but i did all this and still not working.
Help required

Reply
abadey June 3, 2011 6:52 am

thanx man it works well keep going

Reply