Disabling Windows Messenger Service

I have had quite a few people email me with a problem of a new breed of pop up windows on their computer. A company was repeatedly sending messages to their computer whilst they were connected to the Internet. The message stated that there was a security risk on their computer through an open port, and for $50 they could tell the user how to make their computer more secure, as well as how to disable future pop up advertisements. This is a scam because the port in question, (135), cannot really be closed. I am going to show you how to close the backdoor and disable the advertisements for free, as you are about to read below!

As these messages could be sent to anyone with Windows XP, especially those on broadband, I felt help may be needed for anyone who uses Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  Unfortunately, users of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, and Millennium can not disable the Messenger Service.

The Messenger Service, not to be confused with Microsoft's MSN Messenger chat client, is enabled by default on Windows 2000, NT and XP systems, so such systems are easy to target by the spammers.

Here are a few examples:







Here’s how to stop it:

To remove the ability for anyone in the world to pop up messages on your computer, you can disable the Messenger service. This may be reversed at a later time if you wish to do so.

1.
Click on Start, then Run
Type services.msc /s in the Run box and click OK
Services Panel will appear.



2.
When the Services Panel opens, you will see a list of services on the right side.
Go to the service that says Messenger and click on it.



3.
Right-click the highlighted line and from the menu,
click Properties.



4.
Click on Stop in the Messenger Properties window.



5.
Now, click on the down arrow for Startup type and select Manual.



6.
Click on OK and close the Services Panel.



7.
Close the Service Panel, and that’s it!