I've only had my new computer for 3 days now, but Windows Instant Messenger is starting to annoy me. Every time I boot up, there it is, open on my desktop. I don't want it there, I don't use it, but I can't find how to stop it from coming up every single time.
I know (on XP, at least) that there is a way to stop programs from starting on booting up, but I can't find how to do it here on 7, and I'm not about to experiment with a 3 day old computer.
Can someone point me in the right direction?

(I think I'm having XP-withdrawal symptoms; I'm missing it. I know I'll be fine after I get comfortable with 7, but I worked with XP for seven years!)

You have to get into it's settings and uncheck that feature - don't remember exactly where in settings it is though

That's what I've been trying to do. I can't seem to find my way in.

The Settings in Messenger?

In the Menu bar at top, do you see Tools or something similar?
If you do, then find Options / Settings and see if it's there....

You may have to log in to see all options.

I have a friend who disabled in msconfig, changed the settings etc. and Messenger still came up each boot.

Windows 7 provides Mail, Messenger, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and some other software as stand-alone downloads. With my clean installation I only downloaded what I wanted. When you buy a new computer all of them are pre-installed. You can uninstall the ones you don't want.

Go to Control Panel, Uninstall a Program and then find Windows Live Essentials. Select it and then click on Uninstall in the bar above. A box will pop up asking if you want to remove one or more Windows Live Programs or Repair. Select Remove and click on Continue. The next box will have a list of the Window Live Programs on your computer. Select the ones you want to unintall.

:-) You`ll get used to Win7, it's quite slick. Never understood the praise that XP gets though. We have it on an old desktop and its a complete dog - perhaps because the machine is so slow to boot and use. Also it doesnt always connect to the internet and the only way to get it to is to keep rebooting. I have VirtualBox installed on my Win7 with XP as the guest and it runs far faster on that than it does on the desktop. It`s what you are used to I suppose. I was happily using Win98 till a few years ago. Still got it.

Funny: As I was having lunch here at home, someone from Dell called and asked how I was doing with my new computer and did I have any questions.
Soooooo, while he was on the phone I asked him to help me get rid of the Windows messenger window that always popped up when I booted. He said that he had just done the same process with a woman right before me; evidently, that screen popping up irritated more than just me. He walked me through the process. At one point I asked him if he was sure he knew what he was doing. Thank goodness he had a good sense of humor, said yes, and got me through it. His timing was impeccable!

I think your problem is the computer, not the operating system. XP works fine on most computers.

I never had any problems with connecting to the Internet at all, and the computer got slow towards the end because it just didn't have enough memory to support all I was doing. Since it was 7 years old, I didn't want to invest any money in it, so I moved on to Windows 7 (once I knew I wouldn't get saddled with Vista).
I had no complaints whatsoever.

Well Windows 7 is pretty much Vista with a few cosmetic changes. It does seem to boot and close down faster though which was my main gripe with Vista.

Talk about timing! I'm curious, Mary... did he have you uninstall it or was there a way to disable it? My friend had no luck with disabling it.

I agree with Jenny. I'm still using my old XP drive. Yes, it's feels slow and ponderous after using Win 7, but it works just fine and I love my old XP too!

Did your friend check the registry? Might have been stuck in the Run folder. Also there is/was and option withing Outlook/Mail that started up Messenger. Dont know if that is still there.

@Mary As for Dell phoning you up - is that common practice in America? Never known it here. Sounds like good costomer service to me.

The Outlook/Mail/Messenger stuff is gone in Win 7. Each is a stand-alone option now. Actually, both Outlook Express and Windows Mail are gone.

Yes I forgot. I just copied the Vista version over.

Draclvr,
I had to go through the add/remove program section, find the Windows listings I needed and then find Windows messenger.

I think I could do it again, but I'm at work now and I'm working on XP here. I don't think there's a way to disable it; at least he didn't ask me if I wanted to disable it--we just went directly to remove it.