Is there really a down side to disabling Windows Messege Service?
 

To remove messege popups from "Msoft" I have disabled local messege service. As a home user (WinXP Pro), will this cause me problems in the future?

probably not - I'm surprised you're getting those though - I doubt it's from microsoft since I haven't bothered disabling mine and I have yet to get anything from them (or anyone).

Tell me - do you have a firewall?

No.

Message service was intended for network adminstrators and others to send messages out on LANs and WANs.

Disabling won't hurt you in the slightest.

Hi shakran, It's from Msoft and very annoying. It's on a machine I just set up with XP Pro. Upgrade from W98se.
He had Zonealarm which has/had a problem with XP so for an hour it did not have a firewall. It was not online all of that time, just long enough to get this popup problem? I installed Tiny firewall which is free.

Thanks Lebell, I now have a better idea what the message service is for.
This machine is not on a local network. It is connected to a USB adsl modem.

Those pop up messages are from people trying to hijack your computer, most likely. =-)

I thought that SP2 disables Messenger by default. Are you running SP2? If not, then I recommend the upgrade.

We may install SP2 when he comes back from holiday.

SP2 does disable it by default. If you were to be on a corporate network with a Live Communication Server running however, LCS would re-enable it.

For you though, being a home user, stop and disable the service all together or install SP2 and let it do it for you.