Please do the followung and post the results... This is assuming you have Windows XP...
1) Click Start then Run then type msconfig and press enter
2) Go to the Startup tab and look for the service name "MsnMsgr". If it is indeed Windows LIVE Messenger, it will say "C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger\MsnMsgr.Exe" /background in the Command
3) To disable it from starting with Windows on startup, go ahead and uncheck it.
4) If you do not see the service above, look for a service called "msmsgs". If you see this one and do not see the one above, then you have MSN Messenger and not Windows Live Messenger. Either way, we can disable it from starting with Windows by unchecking it.
5) If you want to uninstall it, assuming you have Windows Live Messenger (the service listed in step 3), just go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall it through Windows Live Essentials.
6) If you have MSN Messenger, you can uninstall it by going to Add/Remove Programs, then click Add/Remove Windows Components on teh left side, then uncheck MSN Messenger.
Hope this helps! Lots of good tips in this post should get this annoyance taken care of
Brad L.
Systems Engineer
Prestige Technologies
bradlaszlo[at]prestigetech.com
"Some things Man was never meant to know. For everything else, there's Google.