I keep getting those pop-up ads through the security hole in windows messenger and I don't want to install a firewall to block them. What I did was to delete all of the files in C:\Program Files\Messenger except the messages still haven't stopped. Is there a good free way to stop them?

Start >

Adminitstrative Tools >

Component Services >

Messenger >

right click

properties

Start up type = Disable

Service = Stop

Or even better,JUST DELETE THE FOLDER NAMED 'MESSENGER' (YOU NEED TO RESTART IN SAFE MODE TO DELETE THAT FOLDER!!!)

The Dude :)

Probably better to not mess with features embedded in windows. I would suggest what SWR said.

Yup.. SWR's idea worked for me ;)

You could also firewall the port off.

I had a friend who was having those problems,i just deleted the folder MESSENGER,no more problems!!!

The Dude :)

Deleting the folder doesn't always work, best way is to do like up above and disable.

You can always just disable it by using msconfig (that's virtually the same thing as SWR advised).

There's some instructions posted in another thread that will allow you to stop those messages, perhaps make your internet connection a little more secure and you won't have to delete or stop the messenger service or install any blocker or firewall.

Just disable Netbios over TCPIP for your connection (which you should be doing anyway unless you're using windows networking across the internet).

I believe the windows messenger service is required by certain other windows functions (printer queue notifications etc) so its probably not a good idea to completely delete it.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=159880

Well,if you delete the folder,your deleting the messenger program!!!!!

The program is in that folder,so if you delete it,guess what????? NO MORE ANNOYING SPAM!!!!! (hehehe)

The Dude :)

Originally posted by The Dude_
Well,if you delete the folder,your deleting the messenger program!!!!!

The program is in that folder,so if you delete it,guess what????? NO MORE ANNOYING SPAM!!!!! (hehehe)

The Dude :)

Not always. XP has windows messenger built into it so deleting the folder does not always stop the spam. This is from personal experience.

Ah man........

It worked 4 my friend though,hmmm........

The Dude :)

You might be right that it will stop the spam (I use windows 2000 and I think it would do it on that though not sure about XP), but it might also stop necessary messages that are part of windows. I'm not sure how many of those there will be anyway, but I read that microsoft don't recommend completely removing it because it may cause problems with other applications (I guess it depends if you use those applications as to whether you have any problems though).

If your friend opens up the management console and looks at the error log, he may find a list of errors or warnings when windows has tried to load that process but hasn't found it, so if you're going to just delete it, its probably best to follow software reviews method aswell to stop that happening.

The way I look at it, those messages are actually doing you a favour because they're a warning sign that you have NetBEUI enabled over your internet connection which is a bad thing unless you have a need to use it and have your firewall configured properly with trusted IPs for those ports. Most people don't need it, and disabling it will make it a little harder for a hacker to compromise your machine aswell as stopping the messenger spam.