Greetings Eleanor,
This means two things, either you've saved your password on a public or someone else's
computer, or you have both Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger loading.
If you have saved your password elsewhere, all you need to do is change it to something
different. You can do so here:
https://memberservices.passport.net/ppsecure/MSRV_ChangePW.srf
If you have your password saved in your own Windows XP account, you will need to change it to
the new one -- to do so, click Start, then Control Panel, then User Accounts, click the
current Windows XP account that you're logged in under, then click "Change my .NET Passport",
choose the "Use a Different Passport" button and go through the wizard to set your account.
If you have both MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger installed, they might both be running
and therefore signing you out of one client and into the other. To fix this, if you wish to
use Windows Messenger, simply uninstall MSN Messenger by clicking Start, then Control Panel,
then Add or Remove Programs, choose MSN Messenger (5 or 6) and then click Remove. If you
wish to use MSN Messenger, open up the main Windows Messenger window (if it's not showing,
click Start, then All Programs, then Windows Messenger), click the Tools menu, then Options,
then Preferences tab, uncheck 'Run this program when Windows starts' and click OK. Then,
close it down by right-click its icon in the notification area/system tray (by the clock) and
clicking Exit. Also, if you have Norton Antivirus 2003 installed, Norton added a new
"instant messaging scanning" feature to Norton Antivirus 2003, which can conflict with
Messenger and keep it running (as well, you'll probably get an error about applications using
Windows Messenger when you try to Exit it). To stop it, open Norton Antivirus (Right-click on
the Norton Antivirus icon in the System Tray/Notification Area (by the clock), choose 'Open
Norton Antivirus'), click Options, then Instant Messenger then uncheck MSN Instant Messenger
and click OK.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources -
http://messenger.jonathankay.com