Is it safe to enable messenger?

Hello there,

I also agree with Nick, althought if you don't want to enable it on the local computers you can use the web based messenger to chat or whatever you need to do.

http://webmessenger.msn.com/

Hope this helps

Spec01,

this is not windows messenger or MSN messenger, this is the messenger service, it is unrelated to the microsoft IM client.

it is a system that applications use to send pop-up messages to the screen of administrators or users to notify them of network problems or status.

for example, where i worked previously, we would use messenger to advertise that there would be an outage, and that the system were going down.

it also makes for a good way to apologise when the system falls over when your not planning it :)

google for "net send"

nick

Spyware and pop-ups use the cmd net send
Sometimes you are not even connected to the internet you get a pop up..

You should also disable your remote registry service...

Less admin work for you if you leave the messenger off

Any suggestions on a new way to inform users other than net send (due to the chance of getting spam) or email (the user may take a while to get the message)... web based messenger is not an option!

the only way to do it that i can think of would be to write a small app that listens on a port, and displays messages sent to it. then you need another app to actually send the message.

such an app would just duplicate the functionality of the messenger service, but to make it secure you should include some authentication so that it can't be exploited - i don't know of any such software currently out there, but i can't see it being too much trouble to 'knock up'

thanks for the points, hope you solve your problem

regards,
Nick

Oh ok,

sorry for the post, didn't know that it what you were talking about.