[Nate Smith]

[quote=Jay H 237]This should now help stop some of the pop ups. If you're wondering, Messenger is used by system administrators on a network to send messages to work stations. This is also a "hole" in Windows that pop ups can use. [quote]

This will only help a minority of popups...those that look like a simple windows dialog box and don't use Internet Explorer at all for viewing. My personal experience is that these have not been nearly as prevalent as they were(although, Windows XP's firewall might disagree with me). However, blindly shutting off system services generally isn't recommended. Yes, the primary use of the Messenger service is for messages to be sent over a LAN, the capability exists for other, locally running, legitimate programs to use the service as well. If I remember my previous reading correctly, printer drivers under 2k/XP love using the Messenger service for various notifications.