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Disabling Links In Messenger

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by dan.f

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Hi

at my company we allow people to use MSN/Live messenger, the problem with this is we get quite a few viruses come through messenger, because people just click on links from their friends.

I found out today that you can disable the links in conversation windows, i think this would dramaticaly cut down the amount of messenger viruses we get.

I know how to do this on individual machines (in messenger click tools - options - secutiry then untick the allow links in the conversation window option) But i was wondering is there anyway of pushing this out via group policy? or maybe a registry entry i can do then push it out?

Ive tried googling this for a quite a bit today but havent been successful yet..

cheers!

9 replies

by Former member

The safest way to block MSN messenger is to uninstall it from workstations
and do not give users administrative privileges.

- Another option, although I'm not sure if this is a current fix, is to
create some additional registry entries which disable MSN Messenger. The link below is similar to what I remember, but it's quite an fix and I'm not sure if this still applies to current Messenger versions. If the registry entry is still applicable you could apply this using Group Policy. Again though, if the user has Administrative privileges the
registry entry is not a secure method of blocking msn messenger.

- Finally if you have to give Administrative privileges to your users, or the above solutions are still not adequate etc your next option would be blocking using ISA.

Disable MSN Messenger via Registry
http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php?id=981

Please post back if you have any more problems or questions.

by dan.f

we cant really block messenger as the CEO wants the company to seem like a nice relaxed place to work at. So we have to allow this. Plus people use it to talk to their clients as well.

So i dont want to disable/uninstall messenger, i just want to disable the links in conversations, i know how to do this individually but not company wide. I dont fancy going round to every machine to do this

by pc-guru

set it up on an exchange server so they can't send or recive IM's from the outside world

by iknoweverything11

This is quite straight forward... go to this location and change a value in regedit... every IT professional should know this!!!! shame on you Dan! only kidding my old mucka. . (some kind on London Slang wording, Michael Caine said it)

right here we go:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Applications/msnmsgr.exe

Now change the value to 0, this disables the ability to open links! Simple...

Let me know if this doesn't work and i will help you out more....

by dan.f

Ive tried looking for the msnmsgr.exe key in regedit but the only msnmsgr.exe key i could find is in hkey_local_machine/software/microft/windows/Current Version/App Paths

im running XP with Messenger live 8.5 if that helps?

by iknoweverything11

The problem here is that the setting is per-MSN user, so a simple registry hack wouldn't be possible. The setting is stored here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\PerPassportSettings\ \

The key is called UserSecurityFlags, the default is 0, with disabled links it's 4.

You'd likely need some type of script to read in the current key name and adjust the registry hack... I'll leave that exercise up to you.

Have you got a personal email account so that i can add you to MSN... have a little talk and become friends? you sound like a great guy Dan. ;-)

by dan.f

When i posted the original question i put it on a few other forums and i got the same reply from the other forum this morning.

Ive googled it but i cant get round the passport number bit, so i guess im going to have to think of something else to tweak it to get round this...

by iknoweverything11

you done well Dan, you got me!!!! ;-)

so how about you give me your MSN address and we can exchange it tips, and help each other out every now and again...

have you got a photo so that i can see who i'm talking to?

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