You were exactly right. Apparently installing Office 2003 tweaked OE's
settings as well.

Thanks for your help.

Bill
---------------------------------
"Alias" wrote in message
...
Bill Martin wrote:
Recently I installed Office 2003 and since then Windows Messenger
(Microsoft's Instant Messenger product) insists on installing itself and
keeping active in the system tray. When I try to close it, I'm told that
it can't be closed because OE is using it.

Now, OE never used it before and I didn't do anything to change OE
(current version, current updates), so I can't see why it suddenly needs
some hole in my firewall that I don't want to have. I don't use
Messenger, so it's just sitting there chewing up resources doing nothing
as far as I'm concerned.

Two questions:

1) Does OE in fact need Messenger for some reason?

No.


2) How do I drive a stake through Messenger's heart when it insists
it's being used?

Thanks.

Bill

Open OE. Tools/Options/General tab. Untick Automatically log on to Windows
Messenger.

If you have your contacts pane enabled, disable it.

Now, open MSN Messenger/Tools/Options/General and untick "Automatically
run Messenger when I log on to Windows".

Alias

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