Open Messenger. Go to the Tools menu, and select Options. On the Preferences tab of the Options dialog unselect everything. Messenger will bother you no more. This will have to be done in each user profile on the machine, of course, since it is a per user setting.
 
Oh, and any time you upgrade or repair IE / OE / Office, you'll probably have to go through it again. Many people will tell you to edit the sysoc.inf file and uninstall Messenger. This is not a good idea for a number of reasons. Just going through this bit of an intial hassle will keep it out of your hair.
 
- Collin
 
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that first you need to also tell your e-mail client(s) to not use Messenger! You'll find the setting in the Tools menus for both Outlook and Outlook Express.

Thanks!
 
Edit: Went through the Messenger options and Outlook Express options to turn off everything but it still pops up when I open Hotmail

Okay, so you've started Outlook Express and gone to Tools | Options and checked on the General tab to be sure that "Automatically log on to Windows Messenger" is not checked. And you've started Windows Messenger and gone to Tools | Options and checked on the Preferences tab to be sure that all of those options are not checked. (Actually, the important ones are "Run this program when Windows starts" and "Allow this program to run in the background", but I uncheck all of them in case one of those little "helper" functions might be able to reactivate the thing.) BTW, you can also get to the Windows Messenger options dialog from within Outlook Express by going to Tools | Windows Messenger | Options, too.
 
I just went through that whole rigamarole on a freshly installed system to try to see why it isn't working for you. Guess what. It doesn't work for me, either. The little Windows Messenger icon pops up in Systray every time I start Outlook Express on that machine. However, it is marked as being disabled. The icon disappears as soon as I quit Outlook Express. I can tell you that the process I outlined does work to defeat Windows Messenger from starting on other machines that are used daily. Must be something else involved in this. Windows Messenger has not been uninstalled from any of these machines, although I have gone through the process of editing the sysoc.inf file before so that Windows Messenger shows up in Add / Remove Programs so that it can be removed using the Windows uninstaller. I'm beginning to wonder if some recent update from the Windows Update site might have changed this behavior. The freshly installed machine did have the Windows Messenger 4.5 update installed. Outlook Express is NOT the default mail handler on this PC. I don't know whether or not that has anything to do with the behavior. What is your default e-mail program?
 
Anyone have any suggestions on this? I'll keep plugging away when I have a bit more time in hopes of unraveling this little mystery.
 
If you wish to uninstall Windows Messenger I'll be glad to post the directions. They're certainly not rocket science. It's a quick and easy procedure to perform. Just be forewarned that Microsoft warns against doing this. They say that some of the libraries it uses are necessary for other functions in the OS. I do know that it will slow Outlook and Outlook Express loading if they are set to use Windows Messenger, but maybe in other circumstances as well. For instance, it's obvious that this PC is calling Windows Messenger up when it starts. What would happen to the Outlook Express loading time if I uninstalled Windows Messenger from the machine? Would I wind up waiting through a long timeout?
 
- Collin
 
PS: Something just occurred to me. You said that Windows Messenger still pops up when you go into Hotmail. How are you accessing Hotmail -- through your browser or through Outlook Express or through Outlook? If through your browser (something I don't use for accessing my Hotmail accounts), you should check your online profile for Hotmail to see if it might be directing the little bugger to pop up. If you're using Outlook Express or Outlook, you might wish to check the actual http e-mail account settings for your Hotmail account(s) to see if a setting there might be causing the problem. When I just looked in Outlook, there wasn't anything obvious in there that I would suspect of being able to cause this problem. However, I did see where the "HTTP Mail Service Provider" dropdown allows a choice of Hotmail, MSN, or "other". Which are you using? Do you have an MSN account? Do you have a .Net account or Passport with automatic logon enabled?

If you look here, APK covered a pretty solid method for locking it down and I defined it further for AD users. This way, it won't start at all.

Quote:
Do you have an MSN account? Do you have a .Net account or Passport with automatic logon enabled?

None of the above. I don't use Outlook Express either, I just log in normally through the browser. I would rather not tamper with "hacks" to remove it. It must be do-able through regular setup....somewhere?

You should look at the link that Clutch provided. I retrospect I don't know why, but I was assuming that you were runnine WinXP Home Edition. If you're running the Pro version the group policy editor is your friend. If you are running Home Edition, then we're still at sea. That OS doesn't come with a group policy editor.
 
I don't know much about using the browser to get Hotmail access. I've connected that way once or twice, but I haven't used it that way. I just logged onto Hotmail through the browser and couldn't see anything in the user options that would seem to be the cause of Windows Messenger launching. I learned that it was launching on this fresh install machine simply because OE had not yet been configured on it. Once I configured OE and told the WM not to start again it stopped popping up when OE was launched.
 
I don't know what to tell you about your situation, though.
 
- Collin

Wow, he could be using Home, couldn't he? I guess we will have to ask these questions more often eh? I am just so used to people using NT/2K and beta testing XP Pro that I forget there's a stripped/clipped "Home" version out there.
 

Yeah, I've been making a lot of errors in presumption lately. Those who are sysadmins probably deal with a lot of domain and AD issues which won't pertain to Home Edition. As for me, I've been dealing with Home Edition so much lately for friends, I tend to forget to consider that a personal user may be running Pro. It seems to me that it might be a good move on Microsoft's part to provide at least some of that functionality in Home Edition. I can see that they're trying to keep people from locking themselves out of their data, but allowing strictly local admin control over at least applets would not be so likely to get home users into trouble, would it? <sigh>
 
- Collin