Re: THE CORRECT (AND ONLY) WAY TO DEAL WITH MESSENGER SERVICE POP-UPS. DON'T LISTEN TO JK - OR ANYONE ELSE!!

From: Fred (Fred_at_no.Spam)
Date: 03/30/04 

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:36:51 -0800

I have a copy of RC1 Beta and they did.

Following is a quote fromt he release documentation.

"

What existing functionality is changing in Service Pack 2 for Windows XP?
Alerter and Messenger Services Disabled
Detailed description
In previous versions of Windows, the Messenger service is set to start
automatically and the Alerter service is set to manual start. In Service
Pack 2 for Windows XP, both of these services are set to Disabled. No other
changes are made to these services.

Why is this change important? What threats does it mitigate?
There have been a number of security vulnerabilities discovered in these
services. While the services are started, they allow incoming network
connections and present an attack surface. This elevates their security
risk. Also, these services are used infrequently in current computing
environments. Because of the number of vulnerabilities discovered, the
additional attack surface that the services present, and the lack of service
use, they are now disabled by default.

What works differently or stops working? Are there any dependencies?
Any applications or services that use the Alerter or Messenger services to
communicate with the user will not be successful.

How do I fix these issues?
There are two possible avenues to resolve the issue. The recommended
resolution is to revise the software to use another method to communicate
with the user. This allows you to communicate with the user in a more secure
way, without having to use the Alerter or Messenger services.

The second way is to have the application start the Alerter or Messenger
service before making use of its services. Information on starting services
can be found in online Help and in MSDN.

Do I need to change my code to work with Service Pack 2 for Windows XP?
If your code makes use of the Messenger or Alerter services, you may need to
change your code. For more information, see "How do I fix these issues?"
above.

"

"Cerridwen" <cerridwen@celticnet.com> wrote in message
news:c4c20o$tbu$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Fred wrote:
>> Then why is Microsoft turning off Messenger Service by default in XP
>> SP2 and future releases?
>
> They aren't. Where on earth did you hear that?!
>
>

"Cerridwen" <cerridwen@celticnet.com> wrote in message
news:c4c20o$tbu$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Fred wrote:
>> Then why is Microsoft turning off Messenger Service by default in XP
>> SP2 and future releases?
>
> They aren't. Where on earth did you hear that?!
>
>

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