If you don't use it, get rid of it. You can 1) go to control panel/remove programs, and remove the entire program, or you can open the program, go to the menu, find Preferences, click on, and find the box checked for Enable to start at login, and uncheck it. One program that is handy is Startup Cop, In this little program, it will show you all the programs you have installed on your computer that are set to start at login. You can go through them all, on one page, and disable all the programs that you don't want on startup.
See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Startup Cop

Why? Because.

Annoying isn't it? Can you get rid of it with IE7? I haven't been able to. I can no longer disable the background process without MSCONFIG...then I get alarms going off. I can turn it off but not deactivate it.

marf

MSN Messenger you can uninstall from control panel/add remove programs.

Windows Messenger you can disable or basicly uninstall it by unchecking it in control panel / add remove programs / add remove windows components.

I don't have that. I don't have add/remove windows components ...is it because I use a notebook and have shared components? I have show Windows updates checked, and I have lots and lots of updates, but I don't have Windows Components...or do I search for them?

marf

It might show up in a different area, perhaps under a menu item if you dont have Classic View enabled.

You should be able to open Explore and right click on C drive and do properties .. and windows cleanup and then click the button for windows components too .. scroll to the bottom of that list for Windows Messenger and remove the check in that box. And windows will clean up... removing that version of messenger along with the other stuff.

Perhaps you simply need to be logged in as an administrator account ?

I tried the Control Panel and removed it...then all hell broke loose. I wound up having to completely re-installing MSN. When I un-installed Messenger it affected my whole internet connection and I haven't been able to get online since I posted this thread. I tried to restore the pc to an earlier date and no matter what date I used it came up with message that "this machine can't be restored". The Registry Mechanic kept popping up everytime I turned the pc on to scan it and "fix" it. But MSN kept telling me that there was a problem, a long problem. So in the end I removed Registry Mech., ran Norton deep scans and finally removed MSN and started over again. Finally got back on line, amen! I'm sure if I were more literate in operating this machine I wouldn't get into so much trouble and there are probably easier ways to fix them. Hopefully, it's fixed now and yes Messenger shows up, but I'll learn to live with it and get on with the computer experience! Thanks to all of you who have tried to help me, I really appreciate it! Pat

Calpat: My experience has been terrible when I tried to remove Messenger in the past. With all the alarms that went off you would think I was stealing gold from Fort Knox not getting rid of an intrusive program that I didn't want.

I have had great success with End It All to turn off unwanted running background processes while I play games...well Morrowind, a game. After IE7, about all it turned off was the Toshiba pinger. All the processes are now "protected". The security alert background processes. Everything is running now. Its such a pain. I used to be able to "end process" for messenger and a lot of Window stuff...no more. I uninstalled "End it All" because it no longer ended or "killed" anything but the pinger. I think I'm going to have the same problem as you. I don't think you made a mistake. That might be what happens now. I'm scared of it.

I tried to remove a fax background process,a long time ago, through MSCONFIG and my computer sounded like a fire drill at an elementary school.

mikie ... I'm going to try to look into this anyway. I just hate having to carry messenger because I don't use it, and I won't use it. I don't think it can be removed anymore than I can "end process" for it during a game session like I used to. But you know that I am usually wrong...so I will give a look see...

marf

I have windows messenger unchecked and its not running. I do run msn messenger and use it for hotmail access everyday and some instant messaging too. Works well for some to just leave messages sitting on my desktop while I sleep. Kinda like a free phone too sometimes. Occasionally somebody runs a webcam, while wearing headphones listening to music and forget its on... people look like bobble head toys, bouncing to music. Handy little thing here. It remembers everybodys email addresses for me anyhow.

Oops there it goes,,,popped a note, just got an email, from my sister. I hate her emails, word processor with oddball fonts... looks like hell read in text only, probably has background paper and colored fonts too, but I cant see that stuff. If only she knew what it looked like and how hard some of it is to read ;)

I'm babbling. Nite

I just renamed my messenger folder from "C:\Program Files\Messenger" to "C:\Program Files\Messengerdisabled"... Did the trick and didn't caused any problems....

While I was reinstalling and updating I came across this site at MS:
mk:@MSITStore:C:Program%20Files\Messenger\xpmsgr.chm::/xpstopmsgrspam.htm

could this be what we have all been looking for?

Sorry, I made an error in the URL, it should be

mk:@MSITStore:C:\Program%20Files\Messenger\xpmsgr.chm::/xpstopmsgrspam.htm