Originally posted by: Tom
Reasons why it's a ridiculous procedure-
Why would a person think they had to do something in Outlook to disable an apperently seperate program ? It isn't called Outlook Messenger, is it ?
Since it starts up when Outlook or OE opens, my guess would that one had something to do with the other. But maybe that's just me.
A quick search of Microsoft's support site reveals
these instructions on how to prevent it from starting up. But it's completely ridiculous to expect a user to search a support site. :roll:
Originally posted by: Tom
Why should a person have to start a program to tell it they don't want it to start ?
Can you name some programs that behave differently? AOL Instant Messenger has to be opened to disable the "Start when Windows starts" option. So does Yahoo Messenger. So does Trillian. Why do we have different expectations for Windows Messenger?
Originally posted by: Tom
Why isn't there an option to disable it on the right click menu on the tray icon ?
That would be a nice feature, but again, as above, why are we holding Windows Messenger to a different standard?
Originally posted by: Tom
Why even install it unless a person asks to install it ? It has absolutely nothing to do with an OPERATING SYSTEM; of course neither does 90% of the other stuff in Windows.
It does offer some nice features such as Remote Assistance that are great for troubleshooting. I agree that it shouldn't start with Windows by default, but again, it's not too difficult to tell it to change its behavior.
It's interesting that programs such as Messenger rile people up about XP's bloat and Microsoft's abuse of their monopoly, but the lack of features such as pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing for IE (which are available from third-party vendors) is a sign of Microsoft's neglect of the computing world. Where do you draw the line?