Windows Messenger & Windows Task Manager

[Walliver 0]

You know that really rubbish version of MSN that you find on your computer ? Mine's recently come to life.

 

Earlier today I got a message from someone (or an IM, if you're cool like that) on said messenger. The problem ? I hadn't logged on. I hadn't even attempted to open the programme in a long, long time. (Especially as I have MSN version 7.5.) What's really annoying is that the little icon for messenger doesn't appear in the bottom right hand corner like it normally does so I have no way of turning it off, putting myself to 'away', blocking people or turning the stupid noises off. There's a girl I used to go to school with who I barely ever spoke to but she has my address and everytime she comes on the internet (which seems to be quite a lot) she sends me a message. As I'm on broadband, I'm constantly on the internet and there seems to be no way to avoid people like her. I also use my computer to listen to music but now I can't seem to do that anymore because someone might start speaking to me and I get that annoying sound come through my speakers every time they say something.

 

Any ideas how to fix this ?

 

I've tried the old ctrl/alt/del trick but when I tell it to end the process of msmsgs.exe it ends it but it starts itself back up again. I checked before typing up this message and it was back within 3 minutes.

 

Also while I was in the Windows Task Manager I noted that AOL and iTunes had installed loads of things that were running in the background. I don't think I've ever asked for any of these things and I'm fairly sure I don't need them. I've told most of them to go away but I fear they'll be back.

 

At the moment I have 39 processes running (that's without the AOL/iExtras) which seems an awful lot. There's some like svchost.exe which are running more than once (this one is on 4 times) but I don't really know which of these are important and which I can safely shut down. Is there anywhere/anyone who can tell me ? And is there a way I can stop the ones that I don't want there from coming back ?

 

Cheers for the help should you decide to gift me with your knowledge.

[Shearergol 0]

I've got 55 processes running. Don't worry about that.

 

Anyway, to disable windows messenger:

 

http://www.petri.co.il/uninstall_windows_m..._windows_xp.htm

[peasepud 59]

do NOT delete the SVCHost processes, these are needed for running IE. Basically type each of the names you find in Task Manager into google to identify what they do.