This issue has been bothering me for some time now and I have finally figured it out. Every time I check my hotmail, live emails, IE automatically starts MSN Messenger. It does not log me in, just opens it and sits there and I have to close it every single time.
Here are the steps to disable it:
1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Under Tools > Manage Add-ons, highlight “Windows Live” and click the Disable button (If Windows Live does not appear, change the Show drop-down to All add-ons)
3. Close Internet Explorer and login to hotmail again. Messenger should not launch anymore. It will show you an alert in IE about an add-on being disabled, just ignore it.
When I started working on this website I wanted to create a new logo (title) for it, so I cranked up Sparkle (a.k.a. Microsoft Interactive Designer) and created the above logo. Sure I could have done the same in Photoshop but I chose to learn something new and different.
Anyways the point I wanted to make was when I created the logo and saved it as png file I saw that the background color for the logo appeared totally different in IE than what I had used. Just to be sure I opened the same website in Firefox and it displayed correctly. I thought it may be a problem with png format so I saved it as gif, still the same problem. I finally gave up on it and created two different gif files and hacked up a small JavaScript code that detects the browser and displays the appropriate image. When is Microsoft going to learn to do the right thing I wonder. It's like Girish said in this post "I hate you. But I still cant live without you."
Sparkle is the a new tool just like the Flash tool that targets the upcoming Windows Presentation Foundation. What is WPF, well I think it needs a post in itself but for now you can go here and read all about it.
