Microsoft has started to push out the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 and forcing users to update. After signing in, you should get a popup window saying “A newer version is available. You must install the newer version in order to continue. Would you like to do this now?” If you select Yes, it will download the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 and the required components and install it on your computer. But if you select No, you won’t be able to sign in.

If you’re lucky, the whole upgrading process will go smooth and you will be able to sign in without problems. But for unlucky people are getting error messages such as “Another version of the product is already installed”, “Your computer has a newer version of MSN Messenger than the one you are trying to install”, “Your computer has a newer version of Windows Live Messenger than the one you are trying to install”, “The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable” and etc, you are basically stuck because you can’t install the latest version nor go back to the old version.

The simple solutions is to manually uninstalling the currently installed Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger and try to download and install the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 again. If you’re unable to uninstall normally from Add or Remote Programs, here are two Windows Live Messenger Cleaner Tool that you can try.

1. ZapMessenger

ZapMessenger will automatically uninstall Windows Live Messenger, MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 5.x and their respective installer references. To uninstall using ZapMessenger, all you need to do is to download this small tool 282KB, run it and click on the Start button. It will take from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on your computer configuration. I’d advice you to close any running programs, or even better running it in Safe Mode before using ZapMessenger. If you get the error “.NET Framework Initialization Error” or “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135), make sure you have Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and above installed in your computer.

2. Messenger Deep Clean

If ZapMesssenger didn’t work for you and has been running for hours like it doesn’t appear to be doing anything, then you can try Messenger Deep Clean. Messenger Deep Clean cleans messenger 8.0 and later versions only. It will try to uninstall messenger and sign in assistant. It will also try to delete messenger data, program foles, object and contact store, temp files, registry keys related to messenger. This cleaner uses script. You should see 4 files (RemoveData.js, RemoveRegistry.js, StopMessengerProcess.js and WLMessenger_DeepClean.wsf) and you should only run WLMessenger_DeepClean.wsf. A command prompt window will open and all you need to do is to hit the Enter key to proceed. If not, just hit Ctrl+C to cancel.

Once you’ve successfully removed or uninstalled Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger from your computer, you can now try to download the full installation file to install the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009. Do take note that the link to the installation file below is the English version. This 34.4MB WLM full installation file contains the full Messenger installation including the standard components such as Microsoft Application Error Reporting, Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, Windows Live Communications Platform and Segoe UI Font. After finished downloading, run wlsetup-cvr.exe and uncheck all leaving only Messenger checked.

[ Download Windows Live Messenger 2009 Build 14.0.8064.206 ]

[tags]zapmessenger, deepclean, MSN, WLM, uninstall[/tags]