Ever since Microsoft officially launched their Live products, they no longer provide standalone installer for Windows Live Messenger. This has become quite a pain for some people like me because every time I format my customer’s computer to reinstall Windows, I have to spend an extra 30 minutes just to download Windows Live Messenger using Windows Live Installer. It’s a waste of time and bandwidth!

Although Windows Live Messenger requires an internet connection, Microsoft should understand that not everyone has fast internet connection and some even have limited amount of bandwidth to use per month. There are Windows Live Messenger standalone installers hosted in free file hosting sites such as RapidShare and DepositFiles but I tell you honestly, I wouldn’t even trust those external links.

The best is to download Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft and backup the standalone installer for future installation. Here’s how to do it.

At first I thought it is going to be easy. Just use a packet sniffer to get the link of the Windows Live Mesenger setup file but I was wrong. It is much more complicated than that. Using a packet sniffer will give me a link to download a 16.4MB mu_wlmessenger_random_codes executable (.exe) file. When I tried to run the exe file, nothing appears. It seems like there’s a special way to extract the mu_wlmessenger. After many hours of trying, I still couldn’t figure it out. All I know is it make use of WLSetupSvc.exe to do convert mu_wlmessenger.exe to MSI installation file. (If you know how, please share it with me)

Since I couldn’t find the direct link to download Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft, I will use Windows Live Installation to download and I am sure the standalone setup file will be cached somewhere in my hard drive.

1. Download and run Windows Live Installer

2. Accept the agreement, you can uncheck MSN Home and Help improve Windows Live checkboxes and click Install.

3. Select Messenger (17 MB) and click Add to installation button. Wait for Windows Live Installer to finish download and install Messenger.

4. Once Windows Live Installer has finished downloading and installing Messenger, use Windows Explorer and browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\WindowsLiveInstaller\MsiSources
Windows Installer MSI Sources

5. You might see a few filenames Install_{random-numbers-letters}.msi. One of it is the standalone installer for Windows Live Messenger and here’s how to check. The file size is around 16MB. You can right click on the file, select Properties, go to Summary tab. At the Subject, it will state very clearly that it is a Windows Live Messenger setup package. You can backup and rename that file to a name that easily identifies it as Windows Live Messenger installer.
How to get Windows Live Messenger standalone setup

No more wasting time and bandwidth redownloading Windows Live Messenger or even downloading from untrusted/unknown source! This method will work for all products (Windows Live Sign-In Assistant, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail ,Windows Live Toolbar, Windows, Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Family Safety) at Windows Live Installer.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,