getting rid of windows messenger on XP Home edition

[Brian]

Hello,
any help would be appreciated, please email it to me
because I don't know if I can find my way back to this
group.
I have no use for the windows messenger service, I didn't
activate it but it seems to cause literally countless pop
up boxes of spam, mostly selling things to stop these pop
up boxes. I looked at trying to get rid of messenger but
it is too scary to see all of the other stuff it shares.
Is there any way to get rid of it without messing up
everything else. It's hard for me to understand why
Microsoft has given this kind of problem to users with no
free support to get rid of such a troublesome item.
thanks for any help..
Brian

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Brian,

Do these "pop-ups" that are appearing have "Messenger Service" in their titlebar? If so, what
you're seeing is the Messenger service built-in to Windows, *not* Windows Messenger (which
are two different things) which spammers are exploiting -- this is not Microsoft, nor can
Microsoft control them anymore then they can control spam to your e-mail inbox.

To get rid of these pop ups, you'll need to disable the "Messenger Service", click Start,
then Run, enter "services.msc"and click OK. Scroll down to "Messenger", select it,
right-click and then choose Properties. Under startup type, choose 'Disabled' and then
choose the 'Stop' button. After the service is stopped, click OK. Nothing in Windows or any
real third-party applications should be effected by this.

Just as a little reminder, make sure you've protected yourself against the latest security
issues by visiting WindowsUpdate and installing the security patches:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
(This isn't related to the Messenger Service in any way, just a reminder)
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com