Uninstall of Office Communicator broke Windows Messenger

[UA]

I'm on Windows XP Pro SP1 and was previously using Windows Messenger
5.1 without any problems. I recently installed Office Communicator
2007 for work and used it for a day. Then I decided that Office
Communicator web access provided enough of the functionality I needed
so I uninstalled Communicator.

After the uninstall, Windows Messenger no longer worked. I tried
downloading and reinstalling the Windows Messenger 5.1 client, but no
luck. It installs without errors but both the Start Menu icon and
Msmsgs.exe don't do anything. When I double-click them, the pointer
changes to pointer+hourglass but then it goes back to pointer and
nothing else happens.

Any ideas?

BTW, I'm talking about *Windows* Messenger that comes with XP and NOT
Windows *Live* Messenger, successor to MSN Messenger.

 

[UA]

I'm on Windows XP Pro SP1 and was previously...[snip]

Correction, that should read "Windows XP Pro SP2..."

 

[UA]

I found the fix...Office Communicator set the "PreventRun" registry
key for Windows Messenger but didn't remove it on uninstall.

For the benefit of anyone else who can't get Windows Messenger 5.1 to
start after uninstalling Office Live Communicator, just set the
following registry key to "0" (off).

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client]
"PreventRun"=dword:00000000

BTW, you can find info on the latest version of Windows Messenger 5.1
here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899283