Windows XP Hack — Passport

Too many people are tricked into believing that you need to sign up for a Passport account when you get Windows XP.

Wonderful job the marketing folks did, eh? Well, if you don’t want to sign up for an account, nobody is forcing you to.

At least, not yet. Are you tired of being reminded about signing up?

Fire up REGEDIT.EXE and find your way to HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft MessengerService.

You’ll see a “PassportBalloon” binary value in the right-hand pane. Double-click to open it.

Now, in the resulting “Edit Binary Value” dialog, press the Delete key and enter: “0a” (that’s a zero, sans quotes).

This will effectively set the reminder counter to 10 and you won’t be bothered with it again.

Don’t want the Windows Messenger to pop up when you launch Outlook Express?

M’kay, in the Registry, get to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Outlook Express

and either edit or add a DWORD Value: “Hide Messenger” (sans quotes). Set this to “2” and you’ll be good to go.

Thanks to X-Setup (XTEQ.COM) for providing an easier way to get this done. Within that program, you can right-click on a plug-in and select “Information” for details and script code.