Windows Messenger.

I run XP so have a thing called Windows Mesanger sitting in my system notification area, (tray - by the clock). It is not signed in, and has a little white cross in a red circle´on it's icon.

It normally sits there doing nothing. At reboot, I get a box pop up, then a second box asking me to enter what name I want to use. I usually delete the window and close the box.

Normally, end of story until next reboot. Today, that box and the second one asking for a name has been popping up every 10-20 minutes or so. It is a damned nuisance.

If I try to close this app, it tells me that other software is dependent upon it without saying what.

Could this be due to someone trying to contact me through this service? I don't know, I never use anything like that.

Do you use Hotmail?

ctrl-alt-delete that sucker. If it's really that essential, you'll find out soon enough, and then you could just reboot.

I do not use Hotmail. The only thing I can think of that pops up messages to me that is of any use is when there are new updates available, but I don't know if that comes via this Messenger software.

I have read several sites which tell me how bad it is, but if it is not enabled or logged in, it seems to be just a waste of space. Yet it tells me when I try to right click the icon->Exit that thre are other things dependent upon it without elucidating.

Other apps like Outlook mainly, will for some ungodly reason, integrate MSN messenger into them. You have to go into the options (of Outlook, etc) to disable this. IE can also be a culprit as well as many other MS products.

Lastly, make sure that you open the Messenger and go into its preferences and tell it not to start up when Windows does.

if you have ad-aware you can get the messenger and oe messenger plugins that allow you to enable/disable all instances of messenger (though since sp2 they do just let you uninstall messenger from add/remove, prior to this you also had to delete a reg key and disable the service).

couldnt you just open the messenger, go to settings, and un-check "start on startup"... That's what I usually do...

aren't you thinking of msn messenger?

I think that's what the rest of us assumed.

oh whoops, my bad. Just disable the service.

Goto add/remove programs and uninstall it? Actually does windows messenger appear on that list.....

I saw on a page at MSDN that you can Add/Remove, but it did not appear on my list. I have SP2.

Whatever was causing it to pop up every so often has stopped though. I have not seen it again. I had killed it in the task manager, but it kept getting started again. I removed a reference to it from IE as well.

I saw also an MSDN page about stopping the service, however, in the details of the service it said something like "this service has nothing to do with Windows Messenger". So I left it.

Whatever, the irritation is not there, at the moment...

The Messenger service listed in the services panel is ...well I forget what it was for; but now you just get spam through it. That's what they were talking about disabling.

The actual apllication Windows Messenger is a stripped down version of MSN Messenger that comes with Windows. Take everyone's IE/Outlook advice on getting rid of this.

I use MSN Messenger so I just removed the installed folder for Windows Messenger from Explorer and rebooted. It worked fine for me(long before I got SP2).