Recently I have been receiving spam in what appear to be message boxes. My pop up killer software doesn't catch them as they are not within a browser. The messages appear to be sent directly to my IP address. Short of changing my IP address is there anything that can be done to stop these message spams? The message says that my messenger service is open. If this is the problem how can I close the messenger service? Thanks

Just found a solution for anyone running into this problem in the future. ***How to stop Messenger SPAM *** Fortunately there is an easy way to protect yourself. You can turn off this feature within Windows XP, 2000 and NT. Customers using a router with a firewall or firewall software will probably not need to follow these steps as the firewall generally blocks this service. To turn off the Messenger service in Windows XP, 2000 or NT: Right-click the My Computer icon and select Manage. The Computer Management window opens. Double-click Services and Applications to expand its sub menu. In the sub menu double-click on Services. The list of services appears in the right frame of the window. Scroll down the list of services to Messenger. Double-click Messenger. The Messenger Properties window appears. Select Stop to stop the service and change the startup type to Disable. Click OK to close Messenger Properties; then click the X in the top right-hand corner of the Computer Management window to close it.

E-mail back if this works.... Got to the Run command and type msconfig, then click on ok / go to the services tab and uncheck messenger, then click on apply and close. That should stop the pop ups. It worked on the 3 computers i have.

Go to Start>Run and type in "services.msc" without quotes and look for "Messenger" in the long list. Then right-click on it and select "Properties" and select "Disable" instead of "Automatic".