Windows Messenger Service

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I just performed an “Update” (repair) to Win XP Home and the Messenger Service pop-us have started again.

Until now, I blocked these using my Firewall. I see that the settings are still intact, so something changed when I updated Win XP.

I checked Microsoft’s site and they have advice on this. A solution is to disable the Service however, they also say if you do this that:

“Your antivirus program may use the Messenger service to send you notifications”

Anyone know if it will interfere with aVast? (I have v4.1)

2

You can disable it, It doesn’t interfere with Avast and Avast doesn’t use it. If your on a network (eg at work) Messenger might be used by admin or some Antivirus software to tell you to reboot etc.

3

Let me add that you’ll see an ever-growing number of recommendations that you simply disable this service, because spammers are beginning to discover it as a new medium for their “product”. You’ve probably got no use for it anyway, unless you’re on an LAN – it’s primarily designed for messaging between workstations.

Best,
Mike

4

Hey AerialMadrid,
It’s radicalb21. First let me say welcome to the forum. What you need to do is either go to www.grc.com and look for a program called shot the messenger and download it and run the program or you can right click my computer select manage then services and applications then select services then scroll through the list until you get to messenger then right click and select properties if the service is running select stop the go to startup type and from the drop down arrow select disable then click apply then ok and the service should be stopped at this point and you should be ok. If you need any other help don’t hesitate to post a thread in the forum.

5

Thanks to all for the confirmation that I can disable the service without interfering with aVast!

Cheers
:slight_smile:

6

Your welcome.