Greetings Fran,

Do these "popup ads" that are appearing have "Messenger Service" in their titlebar? If so,
what
you're seeing is the Messenger service built-in to Windows, not MSN/Windows Messenger (which
are two different things) which spammers are exploiting -- this is not Microsoft, nor can
Microsoft control them anymore then they can control spam to your e-mail inbox.

To get rid of these pop ups, you'll need to disable the "Messenger Service", click Start,
then Run, enter "services.msc"and click OK. Scroll down to "Messenger", select it,
right-click and then choose Properties. Under startup type, choose 'Disabled' and then
choose the 'Stop' button. After the service is stopped, click OK. Nothing in Windows or any
real third-party applications should be effected by this.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com

"Frances Emerson" wrote in message
...
I recently purchased a laptop with Win XP installed. I
never configured Messenger, but set up all my email
accounts with no problems. Over the past few days I've
begun receiving many spam messages, some of them quite
vulgar. I tried to delete the .exe files in the Messenger
directory, but that didn't work. I've also tried
uninstalling using your run command "RunDll32
advpack.dll ...", but no success. My kids use this
computer, and this has really got to stop! Any ideas
would be most appreciated.

Fran Emerson