popups that appear without ie open

yes, tis true. i get them and don't know if anyone else does. I have a free popup blocker, but when it blocks one while im playing a game, it messes the game up. so i decided to look at a site one of them said about and it's this: http://www.fightpopups.com Yet it's software that you have to buy. Could there be something in the task manager that I'm running that I need to stop and uninstall or what?

Its the windows messenger service. Go to the control panel, then to administrative tools, then services and disable the messenger.

It's as simple as that.

The messaging service applies only to Windows 2000, XP, 2003, or similar flavors.

If you have 9x or Me (which *is* 9x, but...) OR if the messaging service wasn't the culprit, you should think about running ad-aware or a similar program to look for spyware.

As always, once you're done with the shotgun troubleshooting if it STILL doesn't work, you're gonna need to perform a clean boot.

Check out the microsoft knowledge base for article Q192926 (Win98 cleanboot) or query for your operating system and "clean boot" to find the article for your platform.

For anyone who's not familiar with it, the MSKB lives at support.microsoft.com.

It doesn't have to be the messenger service, SPYWARE will often( anyone ever install Imesh knows this ) open popup whenever it feels like. Go to http://www.lavasoft.de and download Ad-aware and scan your system.... it will finds all sorts of nasty little things.

Find spybot search and destroy and run that too. Just be prepaired to live with a few unwelcome guests. You most likley downloaded a piece of spyware with another package. You possibly even thought you needed it to vue a webpage, or got offered an "update is available download now". Unless your msce getting rid of it completely will be tough. good luck!

Unless your msce getting rid of it completely will be tough.

Anyone with a good grasp of my friend (you know what's coming...) Q192926 will empower you greatly in dealing with such dark secrets of Windows.