I just installed Windows Server 2003 on a private test-server.

After the installation I wanted to install Windows Live Messenger 2009, however it’s not possible according to the installer.

It seems that Windows Live Messenger cannot be installed on Windows Server 2003 and 2008.
I have found some posts online saying that it can’t even be installed on Windows XP 64 bit. However I have not checked if that is correct.

I searched the internet and found a solution for the problem and it worked for me.
I have made a step-by-step guide below on how I did:

1. First download Windows Live Messenger from http://download.live.com/?sku=messenger

2. Then download Resource Hacker.
You can find the official site here (contains info and download-link).
I have however added an extra download-link here to the current version (as of 5h November 2009).

3. Open the Windows Live Messenger installer-file in Resource Hacker.

4. Open the resource tree and goto “CONFIG” > “CONFIG0″ > “0″.

5. In the line to your right find the XML-tag <os productType=”workstation” />.

6. Replace “workstation” with “server” and recompile the script by clicking the “Compile Script”-button in Resource Hacker.

7. Save the modified file in Resource Hacker (that is done through the “File”-menu).

8. Now you are ready to install – simply run the saved file and the installer should not give any error now.

I hope this step-by-step guide helped you.
I now have Windows Live Messenger 2009 installed on my Windows Server 2003 enviroment – and that was my mission.

I’ve had a problem on my laptop at work. Suddenly my CD/DVD-drive was not found in “My computer” and looking in “Device Manager” just showed me a yellow exclamation mark for my CD/DVD-drive and an error that my driver was corrupted or missing (Error code 39).

The exact error-message was: “Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)”.

At first I tried to remove the drive through the “Device Manager” and reboot my computer, but that didn’t help at all. I then started looking on the internet hoping I could find a solution. After about an hour I did.

The problem – on my computer – proparly is that I have installed or uninstalled an application that has an CD/DVD filter driver. That could make this error occur. Microsoft made a description of the problem and has made a solution for it too. You can see this here.

However instead of using the slow manual Microsoft has described as a solution, I chose to find a VBS-file that could do the same just by double clicking it. You can find this file here.

I downloaded the file, executed the file and rebooted my computer. After that my CD/DVD-drive was found in “My computer” and was no longer tagged with a yellow exclamation mark in the “Device Manager”.

Please notice I do not take any responsibility for errors this fix might do. Running the script or following my guide is 100 % your own responsibility.

My CD/DVD-drive was the following model: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA-4082N.

I hope this solution will work for you aswell.