I showed this little trick to a friend and he thought that it was great so I thought I would throw a quick "how to" on here for others.

Microsoft has made it a little tricky to get rid of Windows messenger. However, as with everything, there are ways around this.

Using Windows Explorer navigate to c:\windows\inf\sysoc.inf.
Look for the line starting with "msmsgs" and remove "hide," from the end of this line.
Now goto Control Panel -> Add/Remove -> Windows Components. Windows Messenger should now be listed.
All you have to do now is remove the checkmark from it.

Hope this helps out!