An old hack but is still useful to remove Windows Messenger from Windows XP.
By default,it can’t be removed from XP but we can do it by changing a few attributes.
Windows Messenger doesn’t show up by default as below :
First,we need to make the Windows Messenger component visible in Add/Remove Windows components.To do this :
1.Navigate to C:Windowsinfsysoc.inf
2.Change the line msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7 to
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,7
3.Save the modified sysoc.inf file.(if needed you can first backup this file by copying and storing it somewhere else).
4.Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel> Add Remove Programs.Over there launch Add remove Windows components and scroll down to find Windows Messenger entry listed with it’s size.
5.Uncheck it and click Next to remove.
6.All done.
Hope it has been an informative post.
Peace.