FreddieD

Olive, when you get the pop up, does it say "messenger service" and tell you about some school or something else like that? I used to get them but I disabled the messenger service. I have XP and went to my computer, control panel, performance and maintenance, administrative tools, services, and looked for messenger in the list. If it says enabled, thats your problem, double click messenger and disable it. That should take care of the problem if that is what the pop ups look like.

OliveOyl

Freddie D...Yes, they did say Messenger service at the top. I had no idea that was a part or XP! I've just followed your steps and disabled it. Hopefully that will be the solution!! Now, in doing so, this is the warning I'm getting: "Transmits net send and Alerter service messages between clients and servers. This service is not related to Windows Messenger. If this service is stopped, Alerter messages will not be transmitted. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start." I trust I haven't disabled something I need?

I'd signed off and just signed back on again, as it occurred to me as I was getting ready for bed and trying to explain this to my dh, that anytime I signed back on, even though with a new IP address, if I visited whatever page was generating these, I'd just get them again at the new address, so it didn't really matter if it was dynamic or static...if I went back to the same site each day.

FreddieD

It's just telling you that it is not part of the Windows Messenger service, like the AOL instant messenger, but, instead is a messenger service for UNWANTED pop up adds. You haven't disabled anything you need, unless you wanted to find out more about the school they are advertising (that's the one I always seemed to get the most of!). Anyway, I disabled it several months ago and the only thing that changed was not getting those stupid gray message boxes! Glad it fixed your problem!

travleis

Thanks a bunch, Freddie.
I hope that solves the problem.
I've been as frustrated as OO lately.

FreddieD

No problem, glad I could help. Now, GO TO BED!!

OliveOyl

FreddieD...LOL, I've been in bed and lay there getting angrier and angrier thinking about this. No way I was going to sleep, until I got up and wrote something more. This is one example of why there is a fairly vocal contingent in the anti-Microsoft camp! lt; One of my son's IT friends absolutely refuses to use their operating system and uses as few of their programs as he can manage. I'm curious as to how on earth you knew about the existence of "messenger" and the steps needed to disable it? Thanks ever so much for taking the time to explain it. It has been a really frustrating past few weeks.

Compounding that aggravation with Microsoft is this: a friend that was trying to help me with this traced one ad to a point where he got the following information:

"Your IP is a unique Number like 24.48.214.32
This number is unique to your computer.
Anyone can take this number and send you spam messages.
IP Ads Blocker eliminates this IP Pop Up Messenger spam.
Have you ever had a message like this popup on your computer ?

[It then shows one of thegrey messenger service pop-ups]

Congratulations, you've been hit by the newest form of unwanted advertising, or spam - Direct IP Advertising. A recent article in Cnet states that 30% to 80% of spam attacks today are caused by IP Messaging. This message was sent to your computer through a built in feature that Microsoft included in your copy of Windows 2000, NT, or XP. These types of spam messages are worse than unwanted e-mail since you don't even need to have an e-mail account or web browser. If you are one of the millions of people who get unwanted messages like these everyday, there is hope.



Here are some of the features of IP Ads Blocker:

Simple one-click access to complete protection against Messenger pop-up ads.
Guaranteed to stop any kind of Messenger pop-up no matter what software is used to send it.
FAQ's about Direct IP advertising:

Direct IP Spam is the fastest growing type of unsolicited advertising on the Internet today! It has been recorded as growing as much as 1500% a month.
ISPs and governments are powerless to stop it. There are no laws governing these types of messages. If you can trace down the sender of these pop ups, there is no legal way to stop them!
IP Ads Blocker can help you block these ads."

SO, tell you it's a built in feature of several opeating systems, and they'll *sell* you "ad blocker" for the messenger Pop-Ups for $30 when undoubtedly they *know* all you need do is disable that blasted Messenger! That sort of promotion is NOT conducive to going to sleep!!

Again Freddie, thanks so much for your help and I hope others have benefitted as well. Spread the word you all!

Now...I'm going to sleep!!

FreddieD

Yes, the add pops up to tell you what operating system you have, your IP address, etc.? I don't get them as often, only on certain websites.

Anyhoo, I had had it up to my ears with the "messenger service" so I did a Yahoo search for "messenger service" until I found a link that told me how to disable it. Just to make sure it wasn't filling me with bull, I went to the Microsoft web page and searched for Messenger Service to make sure it was one of their programs and read about the service and how to disable it. I followed the steps and it worked! I just did this for my sister-in-law the other day so the steps were pretty fresh in my head. Believe me, I wasn't going to give up until I found out what in the world I could do to stop this.

I would also get these messages from "Save Now" trying to get me to search other travel sites, etc. when I visited Orbitz or Hotels.com. I went into my add/remove programs and sure enough, it was there as an installed program, probably from some free software I had downloaded, and I removed it! That took care of that little problem as well. These adds are grey too but the top of them reads "Save Now" in bright, neon green. If you get those, make sure to uninstall this program from add/remove.

I'm actually glad I came across your post because I have no clue about Firewall protection nor did I know that XP has one built in. I read someone's reply about how Firewall stops MOST pop up adds, so I searched for how to enable the Firewall and followed the steps. I visited a website that shoots pop up after pop up after I enabled the protection and it worked!

lcuy

okay, since we seem tohave some smart people here, I have another irritating problem. there is a real player icon down in the bottom (task?)bar on the right (near the volume icon. Periodically it starts blinking, and slows my computer down to a crawl. If I click on it it reminds me to update my real player. I can shut it then, but it comes back every 5 hours or so. Any ideas?

SR

Thanks everyone for all the information.

FreddieD: I have XP and disabled the Messenger Service and also deleted the "Save Now". Great advise ! Can you also tell us how to enable the Firewall protection. I've searched all morning and can't figure it out. Thanks !

OliveOyl

I am soo tired, so hope I make sense in this note. I woke up this AM at 5:30, dying to see if the fix had worked. So far so good. BUT...a friend who I'd told of the fix, said something that made me decide to delve more deeply into Microsoft's pages, and I've learned something more that may be important. "Messenger" WAS initially included in XP, NT, and Windows 2000 for a purpose--not to allow advertisers to access our computers. If you are part of a network, it allows the network administrator to send messages to networked computers. Also, it said that anti-virus programs may use this to notify you. That aspect worries me. Click this link to read more about the pop up problem and solutions: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330904.

FreddieD's cure is found as the "work around" in this link, but if you read the link, you'll see they recommend instead enabling Microsoft's firewall which was part of a service pack. This link describes how to enable the firewall: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;283673.

Interestingly, soccr mentioned Microsoft's firewall in his note above. I'd written that off because Norton's firewall which I had and assumed was as good, did nothing for this problem. Microsoft's firewall, which evidently is differnt, had to be manually enabled on my puter, (did so this morning) so you might check your settings and enable it if it hasn't been done.

I'm going to leave "messenger" disabled for the time being, but later when I rest up (my mind feels like mush after last night) I might try enabling "Messenger" again (simply because I worry about anti virus notification), leaving the firewall on and seeing what happens.

Again...thanks to everyone who helped, and to Fodors for letting this note stand. Those pop-ups were making it impossible to get much done once they began! Do spread the word on the cure(s)!

Loki

Icuy,

Real PLayer is a program which allows you to get sound and video clips from websites. If you didn't install it intentionally, it was probably piggy backed with something else, AOL maybe? If you don't need it, go to Start-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs- choose real plaer-click "Remove"

If you remove it and find that you needed it, you can always just download it again.

FreddieD

Olive, I read that too when I was doing my research on the program. Since I am not connected to a network, I wasn't worried about getting messages from Admin. I also read that it IS for advertisers to access your PC. Go back to the services area and just place your arrow on the messenger and read what it says, it tells you its a form of advertisement. I would really rather not have it. It hasn't affected my PC in anyway, except to not get those irritating Pop ups.

Also, I have Norton Anti-Virus. Someone tried to send me a virus via email and Norton had it's own messenger pop up to inform me. It also pops up when "live update" is ready to run, or when it has any other messages for me. I have had no trouble receiving messages from Norton after disabling messenger.

Lcuy, when real player starts blinking on my pc, I right click the icon and choose exit the program, I believe (It's not blinking right now so I am not sure) Anyway, that usually stops the blinking completely.

FreddieD

SR, to enable your firewall, make sure you have XP. Click start, my network places, view network connections. Right click on the connection icon(mine says LAN or High Speed Internet because I am on a cable modem), properties, advanced, if your firewall is already enabled the check will be in the box that reads "Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the internet". You have just enabled your firewall. If the box is already checked, your firewall is already enabled.

I sat around last night and went through the service and support section of my PC (it's a Dell) and searched for things and found out so much stuff! I ran the disk defrag (to clean up any holes left from uninstalled programs, free up space and make the PC run faster) and checked my hard drive for errors. Needless to say, I was up until after 3:00 AM!

FreddieD

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp

Here is the link to the site I was looking at incase you can't find it.

OliveOyl

Correct FreddieD...it does allow advertisers to access our computers, but I don't think that was the original intent. I believe it was there to let network admins talk with their computers then advertisers found the weakness and exploited it. So far so good. I've had nothing and what a relief that is.

The only reason I would enable Messenger now was my concern about Norton being able to notify me for any reason, but if it still works for you, then it will for me too. This computer isn't networked either so the other isn't a problem for me.

I figure I had about 4 hrs sleep between staying up late to fix this, then uanble to sleep because I was angry, then awake this morning early to see if it really was fixed! I'm tired! We could have all just had a party last night~~ gt;

It's still very aggravating to think people are trying to sell a fix to this problem when the fix is something we can do ourselves, free.

There outta be a law. (Did I say that already...yawn? gt;)

HarryR

OliveOyl - Since I am using Windows ME edition I would like to hear from others if they have found a similiar fix for this operating system. Couldn't agree more that THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW !!!! .

FreddieD

HarryR, my mom uses Windows ME and she says she doesn't get these pop ups from the messenger service, however, my sister-in-law operates Windows 2000 and does. I told my mom today that I would come and see if she has it. You can also go onto the Microsoft web page and search for Windows Messenger on Windows ME info page.

OliveOyl

Harry, supposedly only computers with Windows 2000, XP and NT are subject to the "messenger service" Pop-ups. Might you have the garden variety that PopNot will stop?

FreddieD, Mine are GONE! You did it. I can't thank you enough.