Greetings Bundy,
Firstly, can you be more specific about which Messenger you wish to remove? If the "weeds"
you're referring to are boxes with the words "Messenger Service" in the titlebar, 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, 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.
Otherwise, you probably mean Windows Messenger 4.x, which you can remove by closing down
Messenger if it's running (right click the messenger icon in the notification area/system
tray and click close). Then click the start button, then click Run and type in (copy-paste
if you like):
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
Then click OK.
Messenger will then be uninstalled. For more detailed instructions and screenshots, go to,
http://messenger.jonathankay.com/problem.aspx?ID=7
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources -
http://messenger.jonathankay.com