WTF? Why am I getting grey messenger popups?

Nope it's got nothing to do with MSN Messenger and why Microsoft put the messenger on as default is beyond me.

There are 2 ways to get rid of this:

1. Ether download shoot the messenger from here.

Or do the following:

2. Goto Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services .. scroll down to Messenger and right click and go to Properties

Then where it says Startup Type choose Disabled then click Stop and then OK and that's it!