An easy fix for evil Messenger spam on your desktop

[Guest]

Hey All,One of the most insidious new forms of spam on the internet is Messenger spam. An easy solution is now available to fight this.Messenger spam will show up on your PC's desktop, looking as if it was a message directly from your OS. Those who have been bombarded with it know exactly how annoying it is (see the image below) - it is usually porn spam, but can be anything else under the sun. Worse, it is difficult to track where it came from because of the method it uses.All versions of Windows from 95 to XP (even with service packs installed) are susceptible to this new spam because it involves a default system service named "Messenger Service". This is enabled by default out of the box on all Windows systems. Although a bit confusing, this has *nothing* to do with MSN or Windows Messenger, this is a standard networking service on Windows PC's. Unfortunately, the scum of the earth have figured out a way to remotely use it to invisibly spam millions of systems worldwide - and growing by massive amounts daily.To stop Messenger spam, you can either disable this Windows service manually () or automatically from a program linked below. Or, you can use a firewall to block NetBIOS and RPC traffic. If you have WindowsXP, the built-in Firewall feature will do this once it is enabled. For most home users, disabling the service is a good solution in my opinion as not only does it fix this problem, but it is one less near-useless service taking up resources on your system. Read [link:support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b330904]Microsoft's Knowledge Base Article on why you might want it enabled in special circumstances.If you do decide to disable this service, a small automatic program is now available from the following site:http://www.stopmessengerspam.comAn example of Messenger spam:http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e3999c615fd329f.jpghttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e3998c9100d0b76.jpghttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e3999de16f22ded.jpghttp://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e3999eb17609883.jpgBest of luck,Elrond

[Tabs 2,790]

This crap is SOOO annoying... I disabled Messenger service in XP a few weeks back after getting a ton of these messages. Why does MS not reccomend disabling the service? My comp doesn't seem to be working any differently than before - minus the annoying messages of course!

[Guest]

The only reason Microsoft doesn't recommend disabling the service manually is because they don't want to get a million calls from people who disabled some other service by mistake (or because the name looked dangerous) :-)What also helps a treat is blocking port 137 (NetBios) and not activating (or deactivating) file and printer sharing in the network settings for the connection with the internet.Also prevents a lot of hacking attempts.