Thread: Shoot the Messenger in XP

Every time I start my Windows XP computer I am faced with a window stating that 'Messenger Plus has not been installed properly on this system. Please download and install the set up package'. I have gone through the instructions that appear and I get a message saying that installation has been successful. But when I come to start up the computer again, the same the message appears. Is there any reason for this and how do I stop it happening again?

In these situations the easiest thing to do is to 'rip it up and start again', so to speak. Not your whole computer, but just the Windows Live Messenger Plus program. It sounds like you (or someone else) tried to install it and had a problem, but the program has got stuck in a loop.

When the message next appears, click Cancel if that is an option and start Windows as normal (if you can't start without installing the program, follow the instructions as you've been doing). Now click the Start menu and click Control Panel (or Start, then Settings, then Control Panel) and double click' Add or Remove Programs'. If that's not an option, click 'Switch to Classic View' in the top-left comer of the window first. Now find the Messenger Plus entry in the list of options that appears. Click it and select Remove, then follow the instructions to remove it. Once it has finished, restart the computer and you should find that the message has disappeared. You can now install the program again if you wish.

If the above doesn't fix the problem, try removing Windows Live Messenger as well. Follow the instructions above again, but once you've uninstalled Messenger Plus, find the entry for Messenger itself and remove it in the same way. Then restart the computer and, if you wish, reinstall Live Messenger.