Here is another senseless oversight on the part of Microsoft that will have Mac and Linux geeks laughing at us Windows users. The Windows Messenger service, which runs by default, allows anyone on the internet to create a pop-up window on your computer! In the past I've received advertisements similar to the one below, but I could not seem to eradicate them using either Ad-Aware or AdBot Search and Destroy.



If you get these ads, and you're running Windows 95 or 98, there is nothing you can do to prevent them. Nice, huh? Newer flavors of Windows can follow these directions:

Windows 2000
Click Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Administrative Tools->Services
Scroll down and highlight "Messenger"
Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
Click the STOP button.
Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar
Click OK

Windows XP Home
Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel
Click Performance and Maintenance
Click Administrative Tools
Double click Services Scroll
down and highlight "Messenger"
Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
Click the STOP button.
Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar
Click OK

Windows XP Professional
Click Start->Settings ->Control Panel
Click Administrative Tools
Click Services
Double click Services Scroll
down and highlight "Messenger"
Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
Click the STOP button.
Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar
Click OK

It seems to me that there is some relation between the occurrence of these pop-up ads and the incorrigible RealPlayer. If anyone can confirm or deny this hypothesis, please let me know.

Do not confuse Messenger Service with Windows Messenger, the chat program that is integrated with Windows XP and puts the little green men in your system tray:. That little annoyance starts up with Windows XP by default, whether you like it or not, and proceeds to pester you to sign in. To get rid of that, click Start | Run | copy and paste the following gibberish into the Run dialogue box and click OK.

25 February 2003  |   permalink