Shutting Down Windows Messenger

Why do this? Do you get spam popups when you are not on line? They come from Windows Messenger service. This has nothing to do with Windows Messenger chat as used on the web. Confused? There are actually 2 programs with the same name.

One is a program internal to Windows 2000, 2003 & XP used for network messages. The other is the Internet chat program used by the public.

The Internal one is of no use to the casual user & can be disabled to stop spam.

Here is the procedure: There are 2 ways to get to the "Services feature of Windows. (1) is to right click My Computer & click Manage, open Services & Applications, & click Services.

(2) is to open Control Panel & open Administrative Tools, then Services.

Either of these methods opens a list of services used by Windows. You can see the running ones with the Ctrl-Alt-Del dialog box under the Processes tab.

Scroll down the list & look for Messenger. If it says Enabled, you may be at risk. To disable it, right click on it & select Properties. Change Startup Type to Disabled. If you don't want to restart Windows at this time, just right click Messenger again & click Stop.