Make yahoo messenger Usable

I really dislike bloatware where software vendors keep adding unnecessary features to a good product till it becomes a resource hog and unusable. Latest victim has been yahoo messenger. Though I have stopped using it, many of my friends are still there. So, I went about cleaning up the Yahoo messenger to make it more usable. Here is what I Got:


And here is how to do it:
1. This works on version 8 of YM. So uninstall your current yahoo messenger if it is a different version.
2. Get hold of version 8 from olderversion.com 8.0.0.506 is listed at http://www.oldversion.com/Yahoo-Messenger.html and install it. During installation ensure that you select custom install and untick yahoo toolbar. Else you can go to add/remove program from control panel and remove it later.
3. Next we have to ensure that it does not update itself again to latest version. To do this go to C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger and delete “yupdater.exe” or “yupdater”
4. If you want to use one particular skin ( I use classic) go to C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Shared\Graphics and delete other skin names from there. For example classic skin file will look like preview_classic_msgr. Leave it and delete all other files there.
5. Now we will tweak some setting within messenger. So start YM. Go to Actions> Choose a plugin. There go to my plugin tab and delete any plugin you don’t need by clicking at the delete icon after them. I suggest removing all plugins.
6. Next go to Messenger> Show/hide. Untick everything there except status chooser and contact search bar.
7. Next go to Messenger> preferences
There in general tab on left untick following
1. Automatically start Yahoo messnger
2. Stand by and wait till I connect to internet
3. Show yahoo inside
4. Open web links in a new browser window. This will let you use your browser tab to open new mails. Else new mails will open in a new window of IE
Next go to alerts and sounds and untick “Enable sound alerts” You can even customize sounds here
8. Finally, we need to remove those annoying ads. For this copy the following code into an text file and save the file with a .bat extension. For examples adremover.bat. Then double click on this file. Here is the code:

@ECHO OFF
TITLE Remove ads from Yahoo Messenger 8-9

ATTRIB -R "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"
ECHO "" >"%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"
ATTRIB +R "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"
cacls "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml" /E /P %username%:N

SET CONTENTPATH=""
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET CONTENTPATH="*"

> %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO REGEDIT4
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO.
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\YUrl]
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Messenger Ad"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Upload Ad"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Big"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Medium"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Change Room Banner"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Conf Adurl"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Chat Adurl"="*"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Y Content"=%CONTENTPATH%
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\Locale]
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Enable Messenger Ad"="0"
REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg
DEL %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg

Note: Please Remember the advertisements in Yahoo! Messenger are there to pay for us and fund Yahoo!- and so you should consider not blocking the ads.

9. Alternatively you can remove ads following instructions here: http://www.helpbytes.co.uk/noads.php
10. That’s all. Fire you messenger now to see if you like it

Note: If you have more than one yahoo id and want to login to both of them simultaneously then you can use a tool called: Y! Multi Messenger (Google that). Remember that to use it you will have to diable “ remember password” in yahoo messenger.