Stop Windows Messenger From Starting With Your Computer

You may have noticed that there is an icon for Microsoft’s Windows Messenger in the taskbar by the clock. If you are one of those people that don’t like clutter or don’t like things running that you aren’t using then you can prevent Messenger from starting with your computer.

There are several ways of stopping Windows Messenger from starting with your computer but it always seems to come back eventually. Your can disable it by un-checking it in your startup items using msconfig. You can also open Messenger and go to Tools and then Options and click on the Preferences tab. From there you would uncheck the box that says Run Windows Messenger when Windows starts and the box that says Allow Windows Messenger to run in the background.

One of the more reliable ways to prevent it from starting with you computer is to open the registry editor and delete the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows
\CurrentVersion\Run\MSMSGS

Keep in mind that if you do an update related to Internet Explorer or Outlook Express there is a chance it will come back and show up in your taskbar once again.