How to disable MSN Messenger from loading up whenever you start Outlook Express.

[ben2ong2]

I thought I had this covered in one of my tips. Actually, I told you indirectly about how to uninstall MSN messenger and also how to stop from loading it at boot time. But recently I saw few mails/posts where people want to keep the MSN messenger , but do not want it to run whenever Outlook Express is executed. For these folks here are a couple of solution. There is a Microsoft knowledgebase article on this as well. Visit How to Prevent Windows Messenger from Running on a Windows XP-Based Computer (Q302089) and learn You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login regedit, navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft]. Create a new key by the name "Messenger" and then within that another key by the name "Client". This is equivalent to creating and navigation to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client]. Within this create a DWORD key by the name "PreventRun" and set its value to 1. Quit registry and even though not a must, its a good idea to reboot.  One more way of doing the same without sacrificing run time is to go to C:\Program Files and rename Messenger directory to something else e.g. MessengerOff. This works as well.