Greetings CH,
Firstly, do these "constant popups" that are appearing have "Messenger Service" in their
titlebar? If so, what you're seeing is the Messenger service built-in to Windows, *not*
Windows Messenger (which are two different things) which spammers are exploiting -- this is
not Microsoft, nor can Microsoft control them anymore then they can control spam to your
e-mail inbox.
To get rid of these pop ups, you'll need to disable the "Messenger Service", click Start,
then Run, enter "services.msc"and click OK. Scroll down to "Messenger", select it,
right-click and then choose Properties. Under startup type, choose 'Disabled' and then
choose the 'Stop' button. After the service is stopped, click OK. Nothing in Windows or any
real third-party applications should be effected by this.
However, if you really want to uninstall *Windows Messenger*, close down Messenger if it's
running (right click the messenger icon in the notification area/system tray and click
close). Then click the start button, then click Run and type in (copy-paste if you like):
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
Then click OK.
Messenger will then be uninstalled. For more detailed instructions and screenshots, go to,
http://messenger.jonathankay.com/problem.aspx?ID=7
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources -
http://messenger.jonathankay.com