Kevin bashed at the keyboard and said..:
Does anyone know how I get rid of these pop-ups? They are grey boxes
and are not hyperlinks - 90% of them are trying to sell pop-up
stoppers (the irony). The all say "Messenger Service" at the top.
Thanks for the help
Kevin
These messages are caused by the windows messenger service, however, the
messenger service is not the problem, the real problem is the fact that you
are not running a firewall, or if you are, you haven't blocked ports
137-139.
Disabling the messenger service will stop the popups, but if you have file
and print sharing bound to your external TCP/IP connection, then you could
also potentially be sharing your entire hard disk with the world since
netBIOS uses ports 137-139.
A good firewall can be found at
www.zonelabs.com
The small "ShootTheMessenger" Messenger service enabler/disabler will turn
off the messenger.
http://grc.com/miscfiles/ShootTheMessenger.exe
Or you can do it manually:
Disabling the Messenger Service
To remove the ability for anyone in the world to pop up messages on your
computer, you can disable the Messenger service. Its easy to reverse at a
later time if you wish to do so.
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
HTH
