Hi Shaun
fortunately, you don't have to buy any additional software, the cure is
already there. Firstly, go to Control Panel - Administrative Tools -
Services. The list is alphabetical and you will find Messenger down the list.
Click on this file to open and in the General tab, you will see a "Startup
type:" title with a drop down menu to its right. You need to change that to
"Disabled" and then below you will see Service status:, with 4 tabs and you
need to click the "Stop" button. Make sure you also click on "Apply" at the
bottom before coming out of that window.
Next go back to Control Panel and choose Add/remove Windows Components.
Make sure everything is un-ticked except Windows Messenger and delete from
there. You may need to do this twice as the first time I tried this, all it
did was add any missing components rather than remove all.
This will stop 99.9% of your "messenger" pop-ups and remove Instant
Messenger itself but you should make sure you have a really decent anti virus
programme with a "pop-up" blocker included. If you don't have that then I
recommend you buy one like Nortons or MacAfee.
If you do receive the odd rare pop-up in future, then it is likely to be
through some proprietory software you have installed or upgraded so beware of
future downloading and I also recommend getting the Ad-aware free download to
check for these sorts of files.