Disabling livecall.exe on Windows Live Messenger (WLM)

by Nish Vamadevan on 11/05/2007 · 14 comments

Windows Live Call is a resource hog, unless you use this feature there is no need to have it. And it takes about 40 MB of the RAM. Removing Live Call will make the Live Messenger sign in much faster.

Before starting, Shutdown Live Messenger and make sure it is not running. (make sure the icon is not on the taskbar)

You should first remove all the Windows Live Messenger Shortcuts. Here are the common places where you would have a Messenger Shortcut.

Desktop: If you have other user account, its worth deleting it.

Program List: C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Start Menu\Programs

Then go to the Windows Live Messenger Install Directory, C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger

And remove the following Files and move them into a Directory of your choice. (just make one into the WLM install Directory)


htc.8.1.0178.00.dll
livecall.exe
pcsexeps.dll
softphone.dll
softphoneps.dll
softphoneres.dll

Now, you can create your shortcut again manually, It should stop Live Messenger from repairing the files. Follow this link on creating shortcuts http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140443

NB: I have also removed and recreated the following registry, I don’t think there is a need to do it, but If livecall.exe starts again, you can try this method again…

Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

You can either use Startup Control Panel or follow the instructions on this URL http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270035

Last 5 posts by Nish Vamadevan

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Tartooob 22/05/2007 at 13:52

Wow thanks, it worked, It has been bugging me for ever.

2 Oscar 22/05/2007 at 15:12

That is not a ‘proper solution’ at all…

This will simply cripple Messenger!!! Of course LiveCall wouldn’t start up anymore in that case…

3 Nish Vamadevan 22/05/2007 at 16:34

The proper solution is not to make any modification to Windows Live Messenger and its files.

Fair enough, If you say this will “cripple messenger”, I would like to see some proof…

We are just taking out the Live Call files so when messenger.exe is executed, it automatically looks for livecall.exe, when it doesn’t find the necessary files to start livecall.exe, it will just ignores it.

messenger.exe doesn’t know that livecall.exe is running or not, its just one line of code on messenger.exe to start up livecall.exe when messenger starts…

How is it going to “Cripple Messenger”?

I would like to see facts before you go ahead and criticize something!

Thank you for your comment :)

PS: The proper solution is to remove the code concerning livecall.exe in the Windows Live Messenger source code; Which we don’t have access to.

4 Biso 10/06/2007 at 01:54

Thanks a lot it works here

5 Duude 26/07/2007 at 22:01

is the “livecall.exe” process necessary for video/voice in the msn?

or I have to start the process when I want to use my webcam?

6 Nish Vamadevan 26/07/2007 at 22:07

Livecall.exe is just a small program comes with Windows Live Messenger, Its just there as a marketing tool for users to use Livecall.exe to make phone calls. It will not affect Video / Voice of MSN in any way.

7 Dll Files Dude 28/07/2007 at 01:05

Works here also… thank you thank you thank you… :)

8 Chris 29/07/2007 at 21:29

Thanks mate, works like a charm. Beautiful solution to this horrible resource hog.

9 lisa 30/09/2007 at 04:28

OMG. THANK YOU!
I accidently clicked the stupid icon on the msn toolbar and it installed and and each time I open MSN it triggers my norton to accept the crappy program allow list.. and lags me like CRAZY. now that it’s gone.. it’s back to normall.. THANKS A BUNCH!!

10 Tanya 04/11/2007 at 11:31

Thanks. It works exactly as ordered.

11 Nate 08/12/2007 at 21:02

lol, if you are worried about resource hogs, maybe Norton should be on your “Get rid of” list too, lol
but thats just my opinion, AVG has always worked better for me, :D

12 Nish Vamadevan 11/12/2007 at 01:00

I have never installed Norton since 2002! I also carry around Norton Removal Tool for people who wants to remove it… I guess that should explain how much I dislike resource hogs.

Having said that, I used to use Avast, Very good and Now I am using Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 Very nice All-In-One program.

13 dscott 17/07/2008 at 13:57

This method worked perfectly. I couldn’t believe how much faster Messenger logged me in without livecall slowing things up. Thanks Nish.

14 bert 16/02/2009 at 01:33

Can you explain why this works? Does the shortcut indicate when a snapshot of the install directory is valid and any files removed after this time kick off a re-install?

I’d really like to understand the mechansim,

tks – it does work!

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