In need of a XP/2000 expert's help.

My understanding is that certain unscrupulous "businesses" are using the built in Messenger service to send Advertisements to people running XP and windows 2000, via the Net Send command.... Soooo I disabled this "service" and the popups did in fact stop.... for a while...

Then they started back up again like a week later out of nowhere.... I go back to check my services and what the hell is this? Messenger has been restarted. Uhhhh... I didn't do that!

So I "Stop" the service again and everything is fine and dandy again.... for the night..... I hop on the computer again today, get involved in a game of Dark Age of Camelot, and about an hour later, I get booted from an ad again! Check my services, and what do ya know... its reactivated again....

What the hell is doing this? I have verified that my computer has no Viruses, Spyware... and am also running ZoneAlarm (not the best I know but this is not the problem) What the hell is restarting my Messenger service????

Please any help would be much appreciated... I can't take this crap much longer... I love XP but if this can't be fixed, it's back to 98 SE for me...

EDIT: Even worse.. I just checked again and ALL the services I Stopped are reset to Start....Help Center... everything....

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by tastim on 09/27/02 01:42 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Change Startup Type to Manual or Disabled.
Start > Run > type <b>services.msc</b> and do it from there, msconfig doesn't provide such function

<A HREF="http://evilcity.com/" target="_new">The city of evilness...</A>

What we did was go to CProgram files/Messenger and tried to delete the folder. All but a couple of files and the folder itself are in the bit bucket.
You can right click the icon on the desktop for it.
Click Properties-read the folder directory filename.

OR
Click Target which will place you into a Windows Explorer mode.

Always check the lower right section including what is under the "hidden" arrows to see what kind of GIGO is running as you are using the computer.

Also, when installing any Windows OS, choose CUSTOM
rather than normal installation choices. That gives you an opportunity to control _some_ of the surplug GIGO that any MS software installation creates.

The same goes for the IE updates and upgrades or the MS Messenger can be installed as part of the update or upgrade.


Every working computer must be improved .... or replaced ...

I have no problem reading English, therefore I know what I asked him to disable, system will still run fine with messenger service disabled

<A HREF="http://evilcity.com/" target="_new">The city of evilness...</A>