General Discussions

**qwer9182** · 09-10-2003, 12:44 PM

When our DSL went down recently, I was forced to connect to the Internet using a dial-up modem. Now that I was no longer connecting through the router, I started to receive messenger popups on Windows XP that everyone is talking about. Of all the messages I received, I would have to say that absolutely none were for anything other than advertisements selling programs to stop the popups. Also, I noticed that for a $20-$30 price tag you could buy a program that disables and re-enables the messenger service. Now, personally, I think this is just sick. It's almost like the kid in your one-story high school that tries to sell you an elevator pass. I think it's just wrong for people to sell a program that does something as little as that. Since messenger popups can be disabled with a single command prompt entry as you may already know, these programs (which do nothing more) are relatively expensive for what they can actually do for you. I can picture a free application doing this, but these are really pathetic programs. Ads I have seen for programs include one at www.stopmessenger.com and another at www.messengerdestroyer.com. One positive note: messengerdestroyer.com appears to have been shut down by their hosting company (yes!). Still, I really think that users of Windows XP, 2000, etc. should be made aware of this and strongly discouraged from purchasing such programs.

**SmokingTequila** · 09-10-2003, 03:39 PM

How can I stop these without buying one of those things? I'm on a dial-up constantly, so my family and I get about 50 a day.

**david** · 09-10-2003, 05:13 PM

Full details in Knowledge Base article 330904:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330904

Or you can just get a firewall, which will stop the popups and protect you from loads of other risks online.

**techwench** · 09-10-2003, 09:41 PM

Do you actually use Messenger? If not, you can do what I do:

go to C:\Windows\inf (it's a hidden folder) and open up the file sysoc.inf

Look for the following line:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7

Delete the word "hide" to make the line look like this:
msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,,7

Save the file.

This will make Windows Messenger visible in add/remove windows components. Now you can go to Add/Remove Programs, and to Add/Remove Windows Components and remove Windows Messenger.

**qwer9182** · 09-10-2003, 10:28 PM

I just go to command prompt and enter 'net stop messenger' and I don't get any popups. Obviously, 'net start messenger' enables them again.

**stewis** · 09-11-2003, 05:15 AM

heh...

if you have $30 look at investing it in a firewall or spending the extra to buy norton internet security i highly recomend it it not just stops these messages but protects your machine from viruses and security compromises very good value but i am not sure how much it is....

(i think i should work for norton lol)

**twotasty** · 09-12-2003, 03:01 PM

I may be wrong but wouldn't adaware handle this just fine? I am on dsl so I am not positive.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

**stewis** · 09-12-2003, 08:09 PM

i dont realy know i always thought adaware removed spyware aps like GAIN/GATOR but maybe i am mistaken.

**Omega** · 09-14-2003, 04:14 AM

Adaware doesn't handle messenger. I also used the "net stop messenger" as qwer9182 said. It's seemed to stop them so far.