I got rid of MSN messenger after a couple days of trying and haven't seen it since. That was a few months ago so I don't remember exactly what I did. I love getting the automatic updates!! And they're polite. They don't interfere if you start a download or something, instead they wait and pick up again later. You hardly notice a thing. It's not spyware. sheesh. I feel very comfortable with XP and IE6. Don't use Outlook at all though. But there is one really annoying thing about it. XP's sort order in Explorer is different from everything else. Can really drive you nuts (well not as nuts as Poser's I guess).