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 a text editor such as Notepad (we prefer Notepad++). Whatever floats your boat.

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.