July 4, 2008, Newsletter Issue #174: Popup blocker

Tip of the Week

In recent months, the most obnoxious pop ups of all have started to appear on computer users' screens: popups that aren't connected to a browser, appear even when you're not surfing the Web, and show up in a text-message window for no apparent reason. You've taken no conceivable action that could have caused them to appear, such as visiting a web site. Your popup blocker is running. And yet there they are. These text pop ups use XP's Messenger service, which was designed for sending notifications over internal local area networks. The Messenger service is not related to Windows Messenger, Microsoft's instant-messaging program. To kill these pop ups, disable the Messenger service. Run the Services Microsoft Management Console by typing services.msc at a command prompt or the Run box and pressing Enter. Double-click on the entry for Messenger, choose Disabled as the Startup type from the screen that appears, and click OK. Pop ups will no longer get through. Unfortunately, neither will any network messages from administrators if you're on a LAN.

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