Messenger Won't Die

  • Thread starter Thread starter AK
  • Start date Start date
A

AK

I have carefully disabled the Messenger program as instructed (Ctrl
Panel --> Admin. Tools --> Services --> Messenger --> Properties:
Startup disabled and Service stopped) but my firewall (Zone Alarm)
still reports blocking near-continuous attempts by the Messenger
program to connect. I've read that Messenger isn't the same as Windows
Messenger, but all searches for information about how to disable
either one lead to the same instructions. Have I failed to disable the
one that's still trying to connect? If I do have the right program,
why does it refuse to die?
 
Greetings AK,

Disabling Messenger in the Services will disable the 'Messenger Service' -- but this is not
nor has anything to do with MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger.

However, if Windows Messenger constantly is asking for asking to connect, do you have Norton
Antivirus 2003 installed? Norton added a new "instant messaging scanning" feature to Norton
Antivirus 2003, which can conflict with Messenger and cause this behavior. To stop it, open
Norton Antivirus (Right-click on the Norton Antivirus icon in the System Tray/Notification
Area (by the clock), choose 'Open Norton Antivirus'), click Options, then Instant Messenger
then uncheck MSN Instant Messenger and click OK
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
 
Thanks for this. I guess the key question is which program keeps
trying to connect. The firewall lists it simply as "Messenger," but I
don't know if it's Messenger Service (presumably not, since that was
disabled), MSN Messenger, or Windows Messenger. On your advice, I
told NAV to stop scanning instant messenging, although it's a bit
counterintuitive to imagine that merely enabling it to scan any
messages that *might* arrive (but which, in fact, don't) would cause
the program to try to connect to the internet umpteen times a day.
I've also used Windows Explorer to move all the files out of the
c:\program files\Messenger folder. Maybe one of these gambits will
work.

________________________________________
 
Greetings AK,

The problem is within Norton's code to do this -- it calls the Messenger (Windows Messenger
in this case) control which then loads and tries to connect Windows Messenger. I'm still
evaluating Norton Antivirus 2004 to see if it suffers from the same issue (so far so good).
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
 
Thought you might be interested to hear that disabling Messenger in
Norton AV didn't seem to make any difference. At the same time, you
may remember, I had moved all the Messenger files out of their proper
folder and into a dummy folder -- presumably the same as renaming one
of the key files. To figure out which of these two measures had
solved the problem, I moved the files back and, sure enough, my
firewall reports that Messenger is again trying to connect like crazy
even though the NAV change remains in place.
 
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