Very intrusive advertisement (Messenger Service?)

[Darth Viscera]

I was just minding my own business, trillian etc turned off, same with IE, looking at the progress of a Virtualdub encode, and all of a sudden I receive an advertisement! Apparently this one was broadcasted directly to my IP address, and so it popped up as a dialog box in WinXP Pro, sort of like you can do with Novell Netware when sending a message to someone else on the network.

I tell you, this sucks. I already get 100 email spams a day to my hotmail account (even with junk filtering set to high), I don't want to have to put up with unwanted desktop advertisements. Anyone know how to deactive Messenger Service in WinXP? I coulda sworn that I never even installed it. I'm going to poke around in Regedit. Attached is a screenshot. Blurred it so I could get it lower than 50kb.

[imported_Grev Drasen]

Yeah, goto into Program Files and find the Messenger folder. Rename it from Messenger to MessengerOFF and it should disable Windows Messenger.

[Zatania Duvall]

Oh man that would tick me off royally. Sorry I can't help. I'm a dunce when it comes to computer technology. :p

[Darth Viscera]

Originally posted by Grev Drasen
Yeah, goto into Program Files and find the Messenger folder. Rename it from Messenger to MessengerOFF and it should disable Windows Messenger.

That's how you would go about disabling Windows (MSN) Messenger. Messenger Service is something else entirely, like
net send /users This server will shut down in 5 minutes.

As I said, it's like the send message util in Novell Netware that'll let you send a message to other users on your network, and then up pops a dialog box containing the message.

[imported_Eve]

Viscera I have the same thing happening to me. I posted about it elsewhere, and they told me not to use IE anymore. Use web based hotmail. I usually get one of these pop ups once every week or so.

Other than that, no one really knew what to tell me. I don't open any mail, and had adaware already installed (which is supposed to prevent such stuff).

[Morgan Evanar]

Ad-Aware won't prevent, but it will destroy.

[Gouyen Chee]

Another reason I'm glad I use a Mac. :D

[Seerrasseei Tsseerra]

hasn't happened to me yet..... :\