I run a Cyber Cafe and my customers log into their MSN/Yahoo Messenger account - sometimes they check in the "save username and password" or other variations of "remember me". I need to disable that feature - how? One the most common classes of questions I get has to do with people who've lost access to their own accounts because someone else changed their password. Setting "remember me" on a public computer is a quick way to set yourself up for having your password changed and your account stolen. I laud your efforts to help prevent this. Sadly, the news isn't all that good. I could find no official way in either MSN Instant Messenger, or Yahoo Instant Messenger to disable this feature. One would think that with the rampant problems it can cause, there would be a documented way for people in exactly your position to so. "I could find no official way ... to disable this feature. "
However, I didn't stop there. Unfortunately, I could not come up with a way to coerce MSN Instant Messenger into disabling the feature. Similarly, with Yahoo Instant Messenger, I thought I had a line on a registry setting that could be tweaked, or perhaps permissions on a registry setting could be altered to prevent it from being changed, but alas ... my experiments failed. I'm hopeful that perhaps a reader will report back with a hack I've missed, or perhaps even an officially supported mechanism that I overlooked. But for now, you'll have to rely on your clients to "do the right thing" ... which I know you can't really count on. Related:
Article 9583 | Posted December 24, 2005 |
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here, i know a solution, tell your people to just not click it...and if they do, then that sux for them cause someone else will get into it.
Posted by: brandon at December 28, 2005 8:23 AMThere are hardware solutions available, usually deployed in schoolar computer rooms. They are PCI cards, and intercept all write request to the HD, and cache them on another partition. On each boot, the computer will forget the written data and therefore start at the same point. All cookies, history, temporary files etc. will have been gone.
Posted by: Alexander at January 1, 2006 8:13 PMWell, if I understood well the question, the awnser is simples: just alter the variables "MSNSignInMRU0X" on the file called com.microsoft.Messenger.plist
Posted by: Edgar Monteiro at February 11, 2006 7:19 AMHowdy... you might want to check out the "Shared Computer Toolkit" from Microsoft. It has profile and drive locking features (tossing out all changes since the admin told it to lock) while still allowing specified system updates (virus scanning data, operating system updates, etc). Much easier to manage than the PCI card drive locking system.
(In fact, that is why it was developed... as an answer to some issues they had with the Gates Foundation granted machines in schools and libraries. Those machines had PCI drive locks and some OS tweaks.)
It's a freebie on their website, and it's a good product. (Speaking as a full-time *nix guy, that's a fairly rare thing for me to say. ;)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx
And if you don't want a MS product to do this job, maybe you should just go all the way and maybe replace with software from these guys:
http://www.userful.com
Another good product, with fully functioning downloadable demos. :) (The multi-headed machine setups they trumpet are very cool, but all of their stuff can be run as traditional stand-alone workstations as well.)
Cheers!
Posted by: JM at February 24, 2006 10:21 AMall of my contacts dissapeard!!!!! MSN IS SKREWED!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DO I GET MY CONTACTS BACK!!!
Posted by: atri at April 26, 2006 6:22 AMyeah, i've gone through you article and all is well and nicce, but i have a problem. and this my problem i know you can solve for me.
Posted by: Mayowa at June 21, 2006 11:59 AMhere is the question. what are the relativities of computer with internet. this is what i was searching for when bursted into your articles.
thanks. please send me the answer thruogh my email.
how do i delete the different email addresses ive used to sign in on, on msn. on the signing in page?
Posted by: me at September 4, 2006 12:32 PMThe fix for this is to use control panel, user accounts, then selcet your user name. then under related tasks in the left pane select manage my network passwords. From there remove the offending user account. problem solved.
Posted by: kathleen at December 4, 2006 9:32 AMI agree with JM (at February 24, 2006 10:21 AM) about the use of Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit (called today SteadyState). I didn't know about it before reading this page, but now i am sure i am going to use it.
Thanks!!!
Posted by: David Salinas Cortés at August 23, 2007 1:24 AMhow did i clear my email address on window massanger.
Posted by: hj.saini at March 21, 2008 2:58 AM