How do I get rid of the Skype lady?

For what feels like a year, Skype has had a picture of this lady in the middle of the interface.

No offense to the lady, but seeing her face in the middle of my contacts is distracting. When I look at Skype I want to see my contacts, not an unfocused picture of a lady adjusting her webcam in her stainless steel kitchen.

What I've Tried

Updating Skype
Extracting resources from Skype.exe using NirSoft's ResourcesExtract (the picture is not stored there as a plain image).
Studying AppData\Roaming\Skype
Writing this question.

Any help appreciated!

zx81

Posted 2016-09-29T13:54:19.677

Reputation: 426

Take a look: https://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/How-do-I-remove-this-girl-s-face/td-p/4080110

– duDE – 2016-09-29T14:14:26.193

2she looks eerily like someone I used to know. – Journeyman Geek – 2016-09-29T14:18:38.273

@JourneymanGeek Yeah, I know. – zx81 – 2016-09-29T14:22:08.530

@duDE When I look at the link you give I find complicated instructions for doing what OP asks, together with a note saying they do not work. Do you find an answer that does work? – Colin McLarty – 2016-09-29T16:11:29.653

@ColinMcLarty I think meanwhile OP has found the answer that works. Hope the link has helped. – duDE – 2016-09-30T08:51:32.843

Answers

IN View drop down select default page as call or profile rather than home than will do the trick.

vembutech

Posted 2016-09-29T13:54:19.677

Reputation: 5 693

Nice trick, +1. Wasn't aware of that option, I like that -- the Call page seems more practical than the default. – zx81 – 2016-09-30T13:12:48.290

After some more research, here are two possible methods found on the Skype forum. Not sure if either will work long-term. If you have other ideas, please post an answer.

Method 1: toggling the view

In the main window, perform these two actions:

View / Split Window View
View / Single Window View

Method 2: custom language file

Tools / Change Language / Edit Language File
Press "Save As" and select a folder you can write to
Tools / Change Language / Load Language File / load the file you saved

You may have to restart skype (for a full quit, right-click the tray icon and select "quit")

Bonus: Disabling Skype Updates

In addition to these methods, it may be useful to disable Skype updates, both to get rid of the annoying window and to avoid things getting mangled again.

Two methods to disable Skype update:

A. Disable using AutoHotkey. If you already use AutoHotkey, you can do something like the following (to be refined) to kill the "Update available" window that pops up even when you've turned off auto-updates:

Loop 
{ 
WinWait, Update
WinClose, Update
}

B. Disable in hosts file. If you don't use AutoHotkey, use the following to kill updates:

Disable updates in Skype (Tools / Options / Advanced / Automatic Updates)
Add download.skype.com to your hosts file: 127.0.0.1 download.skype.com # disable skype updates
On Windows, disable the Skype updater service
On Windows, delete Skype-related files from the %TEMP% folder

References

zx81

Posted 2016-09-29T13:54:19.677

Reputation: 426

Method 2 totally worked. I still get an AdChoices ad, but the lady is gone! It worked for a coworker of mine too. For sure works with version 7.40.0.151 – CokoBWare – 2018-02-23T14:37:10.083