Hey,
I just got Windows XP, and there is this thing that i have never seen before, its called windows messenger. i keep on getting these messages from people i dont know asking me if i want the messages to stop, the messages kinda look like default windows.
Do i need windows messenger to work messengers such as msn and trillian? If so, how do i get these messages to stop?

Messanger is the cause of these pop-ups I believe it was an exploit used by clever marketing people to advertise self-defeating (example. Scientests that create diseases only to create the immunity to make money)

I suggest you go to www.google.com and type STOP WINDOWS MESSENANGES or something like that I had the same problems and just disabled winmessages theres alot of ways to go about doing this .. if google.com didn't work simply reply again and I'll show you more indepth ..

btw no you do not need windows messanger to work other messangers.

so can i just take it off my system?

i found some software, i dont know if it works yet, i guess i will find out in a day or so

start>control panel>switch to Category View>performance and maintaince>administrative tools>services>messenger

double click on messenger, half way down choose start up type of Disabled.

You will no longer get the grey adds.

tried that, but that also stops the lil messages from MSN telling me that i have mail and that my friends have come online, i haven had any gray screens lately so i think the software is working, for once
Yay!

All windows systems have carried a Messenger protocol in the background, and this has been exploited for many years. Notibly the win2000 and XP systems allow you to control it a bit better where as the systems prior to that you wouldn't even know that the protocol existed.

I have a program somewhere that actually allows you to pretty much send a message to any system by it's IP which will come up like one of those boxes you mentioned.

The protocol itself is run normally similar to how mail gateways work, where the systems allow "tunneling" of messages on networks (where a message can be sent to travel through the computer your on to another computer in a network). Originally designed for Local Area Networks but exploited on the Internet.

What your actually turning off in win2000 or winXP isn't so much the singular message but the ability to send messages through this protocol (you block the gateway), thats why any other messages that are reliant on it can't be picked up by your system.

You might want to investigate which port is actually used by the Messenging protocol and then place a firewall on it, so you can then decline anything you don't "authenticate".

The software did not work, so i got zone alarm.
I have not had a message since