MSN messenger problem

I've got a problem with the lastest MSN messenger.
Eventhough I unchecked "load at startup" and "run this program in the background" in it's options screen, it seems that MSN is still being loaded at startup. Because of this, I still appear as being online to the persons in my contact list (without my knowledge). Obviously, I'm not too thrilled about this.

There is no MSN icon in the lower right corner of my screen. When I whip up the task management menu, MSN is also not shown in the applications tab.
However, when I look at the "processes" (sp ?) tab, I can see that msmsgs.exe is loaded. And this one is the culprit. If I manually disable it, then the problem is gone.

How can I stop this msmsgs.exe from being loaded at startup ?
I hope somebody knows an answer to this for me, because otherwise the next step will be uninstalling messenger.

I run WinXP Sp1 with the latest messenger version (6.1 ?)

Thanks!

Erlend

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_messenger.htm

Are you running Outlook? If so, you might want to try disabling messenger in the Outlook options. I ran into a similar problem with outlook in XP.

- trs

Thanks, that looks like a lot of info. I'll carefully read through it and see if it hold anything that can help me.

thanks!

Go into regedit:

Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

See if msmsgs.exe is listed anywhere in there and delete it.

No. I don't use outlook. Only Eudora.
I've read about that problem, but that's not it. Unless you mean Outlook express, that one is installed by default with XP of course. But I 've never used it. Could that be it ?

I also thought of that and have already checked it. This was not the case. thanks for the suggestion though.

I must say I find this whole thing rather weird.

Unless you mean Outlook express, that one is installed by default with XP of course

Not necessarily. Outlook XP seems to have MSN messenger integration, too. When you're replying to a message, it tells you whether the person is online in Messenger or not.

I tried disabling it through gpedit.msc, (Start/Run/gpedit.msc/Admistrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Messenger) but that doesn't work. Although I specifically stated that it should NOT start at windows boot, it still does.

Even uninstalling it doesn't work !!! The program is gone, but other people can still see me online and page me. Incredible.

For now I've solved it like so : I've put it into Zonealarms' forbidden programs list. That will stop it for now, but is far from an ideal situation.

Edit. Just after posting this post, my PC froze. It seems that this msmsgs.exe constatly tries to get online. If the firewall blocks this the PC crashes.
The weird part is (is this can even get more weird) that once I kill this process the first time, I remain offline, even if the process revitalises itself after a few minutes.

The way I see it now is that I'll just let it boot with windows, like it wants to obviously. Then I'll exit the program manually each time. A drag, but I can't think of anything better.

Second edit : Ok, that too doesn't work. WhenI immediately close messenger after, I remain online. AAAARGH!

Any other ideas are highly appreciated !!

Start -> Run:

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

Thanks, that worked ! As it seems, I had installed messenger 6.1. But 4.7 was still somehow integrated in XP. There was no real way of uninstalling it though normal means, but that command line did the trick.

Phew. Crisis averted. Thanks all!