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.