1. Download msgr7us.exe from the Yahoo web site
2. Run msgr7us.exe
3. Deselect several invasive options on page 2 of 6 of the installation dialog by clicking on Custom Install:
   NOTE: These are my suggested settings:
   
4. Accept EULA on page 3 of 6 of the installation dialog.
5. Continue through the installation dialog to page 5 of 6 and STOP.
6. Manually create this folder: %ProgramFiles%\Yahoo!\Installs, and open a copy of Windows Explorer to it.
7. Upon clicking [Next] on page 5 of 6, monitor the folder above; during the web installation's download, ymsgr7us.exe (total size=8453 KB) will be copied here.
8. From the folder above, copy the file above to a working folder. This is the complete Yahoo! Messenger installation file, minus the other Yahoo! application installations.
9. Uninstall Yahoo! Messenger to continue working with and testing the silent installation.

1. Already-created
2. To-be-created

1. Already-created
2. To-be-created

• YM launches immediately after installation completes, when installing on fully-booted XP.

  From other posts in this thread (i.e. I haven't verified these results) this also occurs during XP UA.

• YM may accomplish the auto-launch as a result of the installation program itself, or via a registry value located under RunKey.

  At this time, it's uncertain "which came first the chicken or the egg." My educated guess (based on the behavior in the bullet below) is that the installation program triggers the auto-launch.

• It is clear now that whenever a user first launches YM, the RunKey and "Default" preferences registry settings are created as a result.

  This has been verified on a PC with three user accounts; only the account that orginally installed YM, has the YM "Default" preferences and RunKey registry settings. The other two XP user accounts do not auto-launch YM when first logging into XP after YM installation (one account is limited, the other an administrator). However, once these other two users manually launch YM, the YM "Default" preferences and RunKey registry settings are immediately created.

  Attempted Work Arounds:
  • Use the following script command to kill the YPager.exe process during installation:[/b]
    
    CODE
    TaskKill /F /T /IM YPager.exe > Nul

    This works to kill the process once, but it will launch again upon next log on for the user account that installed YM.

  • Import the following registry file to avoid future YM auto-launch:
    
    CODE
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
    
    ; Remove registry key to automatically run Yahoo! Pager at user log on.
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
    "Yahoo! Pager"=-

    The above registry setting will only affect the user account, under which YM was installed (which if installed from CmdLines.txt is the .Default User). Immediately after YM installtion, the other user accounts do not have yet this RunKey registry setting to delete, and will not have it until after the first time the user manually launches YM.

• Importing preferences for single, known YahooID works well.
• It appears as if the YM "Default" preferences are stored under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager] in various subkeys and values.
• Once a user logs into YM with a YahooID, a new key is created [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\yahoo\Profiles\YahooID]. This key is initially empty, but after the user customizes preferences, this key contains several subkeys and values that seem to override the YM "Default" preferences.

  If the above theory about YM's "Default" preferences registry settings holds true, I believe a simple script that runs once for each user, importing a .reg file with "Default" YM preferences, should achieve this objective. Such a script would have to execute prior to the user's first manual launch of YM. I do not yet know how to accomplish this. If the "Default" preferences approach does not work, perhaps the script could prompt the user for their YahooID when they first log into XP after YM has been installed, and simply import a preferences registry file customized for that YahooID. Could possibly modify the Start Menu icon to point to a script that checks for this.
  

  Will attempt to:
  • Save a registry file with the preferences from a known user's account.
  • Try to coerce YM to use the preferences from the known user's account as "Defaults" by relocating where these settings are placed in the registry
  • Develop a script that imports a imports HKCU .reg file with the new "Default" preferences registry settings.

This file can be copied to another location, but cannot be moved. This file tells the YM uninstaller what to remove from the PC, and if it cannot be found, the uninstaller errors.