Disabling Windows Live Messenger at Startup

I couldn’t find documentation on this elsewhere on the net so I decided to add a note here. I have to use a Windows XP workstation at my job and I’ve been annoyed that the Windows Live Messenger program seems to start up every time the system restarts. Disabling this was non-obvious:

  • Open Windows Live Messenger
  • Click on the question mark icon on the right hand side of the window.
  • From the popup menu choose Show the menu bar
  • In the menu bar (at the top of the window) click on Tools -> Options
  • Click on Sign In in the left hand side menu
  • Uncheck the checkbox that says Automatically run Windows Live Messenger when I log on to Windows
  • Click the OK button.
  • Quit the program