Remove ads from Windows Live Messenger
Jul 21st, 2007 by Jared Schwager
Windows Live Messenger is a great instant message client and is very feature-rich. This may be all fine and dandy, but there’s just one problem with Live Messenger: the advertisements! Thankfully there’s a quick and easy way to remove the ads by blocking access to rad.msn.com, which is the server hosting all the ads. This can be done by editing your hosts file.
First of all, you will need to find your hosts file. This can be found in the folder %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc. Just copy and paste that into your address bar in Windows Explorer and you’ll automatically be taken to the correct directory.
Once you’ve found your hosts file, right-click on it and select “Properties”. Now uncheck the box next to “Read-only” and click OK. Open this file in WordPad or Notepad. Whichever you prefer.
Add the following to a new line at the end of the file: 0.0.0.0 rad.msn.com
Save the file and restart Windows Live Messenger. There should be no advertisements in either the main window or message windows.
Sorry for the long delay in posts. I was busier than a bee this week.
Sorry, but this doesn’t work for me at all. Maybe it’s because I’m still using WLM 8.0? Should I upgrade to the 8.5 version on your screenshot?
Juliana, you may have to restart your computer in order for the changes to take affect.
You need to flush the DNS before it will work.
If you have admin access on your account you can goto cmd and type in “ipconfig \flushdns” and then this solution will work.
Nathan, I knew about this, but all I had to do was restart Live Messenger and it worked. Maybe you don’t need to flush the DNS in Vista.
Thank you so much for that simple fix. I didn’t trust this A-Patch tool that is all over the search results.