Windows Live Messenger popping up on Windows Mobile

It is unclear when and how it started, but for about a week or two I had been annoyed by Windows Live Messenger popping up on my Windows Mobile 6 phone every time I unlocked it. While all I had to do is press the Cancel button to make it go away, such a small thing can become a huge issue in one’s mind over time.

Killing the process did nothing – the pest would be right back the next time I unlocked the phone.

A quick Google search brought up nothing but Microsoft marketing blah blah, so I decided to figure out how to get rid of the thing myself and post it here.

The culprit is an executable in the Windows folder: \Windows\WLMLauncher.exe
One could of course simply delete the executable. I chose to make a registry change. Here are the step-by-step instructions.

• First, I installed a registry editor (if you don’t have it already, download the HTC Registry Editor)
• I copied the executable (regedit.exe) to the device
• I started regedit.exe on the device
• I searched for WLMLauncher. You can skip the search and just
• Navigate to /HKLM/Services/WindowsLive/Path
• I edited the only value for this key – AppLauncher – by inserting a random character at the beginning of the path, making it impossible for the system to start the executable

Windows Live Messenger has not bothered me again since I made this change.