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Enterprise 2.0 seaport.exe

Seaport.exe, a battle of the cloud

Noticed this morning after my PC ran to a crawl that a new app was running – seaport.exe. A quick Google (no I didn’t use Microsoft Live search) revealed that quite a few people thought is was spyware and even their tech advice advised so. However, it turns out that this thing lurking as seaport is actually a Microsoft app and more specifically a Search Enhancement one. 

Far from being one of those loathers of the Redmond lot I was nevertheless a bit put out to learn this. It was apparently installed along with Windows Live Writer, an app which I installed but have so far not got on with – I’m typing this directly into Chrome. Either way, I hadn’t asked for this app and didn’t have a perceived need for it either. So some further searching revealed the basics on how to remove seaport.exe – see below.

 

The author of the piece a certain Mr or Ms Improbulus I duly thank. But what is Microsoft’s motive here. Ms Improbulus is in no doubt:

I know Microsoft are trying to catch up on the “browser as desktop” / “cloud computing” front especially after the release of Google’s Chrome browser, but forcing Office Live Add-in etc onto Windows users really isn’t the way to do it.

I fully agree with the latter sentiment. Also, if Microsoft is to catch up here, let alone take the lead in this battle of the cloud, then these sort of subterfuges are not the best way forward. Far better to court our cooperation with transparency and not quasi secret bundles.

Update: How to stop seaport.exe

 

Here’s the basics on stopping seaport.exe

For Vista go to Start and Start Search and enter  “services.msc”

 

For XP go to Start Run 

run

and enter “services.msc”

services

Click OK. Next you’ll get this screen pop up:

services1

Scroll down do seaport.exe, right click and select Properties – a box like this will appear:

properties

Go to Startup Type and select Disabled

This should stop it hogging up your machine working.

See also for more details and Live Add-in too.

19 replies on “Seaport.exe, a battle of the cloud”

[click] start/run [type] msconfig [click] ok

[click] services tab [click] hide all microsoft services [scroll] down and [click] untick seaport [click] apply. reboot 🙂

I installed Live Messenger about a month ago. Don’t like it as much as other non-Microsoft similiar products so hadn’t used it much. About a week ago it began ‘nagging’ me each time to Update to a latest version (since as far as I was aware I had the very latest I was somewhat suprised – but ignored it). Yesterday I went to launch it but it told me I had to Update OR I could not access Live Messenger. The update took over 30 mins!! Guess what – I checked to see what else had been installed – I got Seaport & everything else that comes with it! I am outraged! I intend to do all that I can to let people know how underhand Microsoft are behaving! Linux becomes ever more enticing!

March 1 11
I gotcha’ Dave… I too am thinking more and more of going to Linux as the Windows Live Messenger was a real Nightmare to get it working. I wish one software company could make a real good compeditor in the OS world, so we can forget about Big Brother Microsoft as they release a lot of untested OS’s. (remember Vista ?) So now Linux is so very appealing.

RE: – David Allanson

TBH most software you get free has this crap in it – But you say you were forced to download it and runit ?

did you just click next next next ok ?

it asks you if you would liek to download all the other stuff as well as the new live messenger

just becasue you dident take the time to read (if you took the time to read atleast a little of the termss and conditions before you ticked the i accept box ) you would see it all there

To the contrary over the years I’ve used lots of perfectly good freeware without ANY ‘crap’ as you call it. I never download anything without being very thorough. I had already installed the latest Live Messenger very recently which made it all the more odd to have an Update requirement. The update was mandatory (or I could not even access Messenger!) ALL there was to select was ‘ok’ – absolutely nothing else – no checkboxes – no NOTHING! It took so long updating that I knew it hadn’t been a simple and honest upgrade – when I looked to see what else it had done I found Seaport – which is what this whole discussion is about!If you take the time to read the original article at the top of this page I hope you might have a better understanding of the issue.

This is a new PC and seaport has yet to appear on it, but I’ve not downloaded Live yet. Not have I been forced to though, so maybe there’s a change there from Microsoft. No one after all, wants items downloaded without their consent.

Yeah Russell – it seems from my own experience and what others are saying on the web that it is all linked to Live. But I think whats interesting is that in most cases people came across it through ‘upgrades’ to Live Writer which I havn’t got and don’t even have a clue what it is – lol! But seems Microsoft will get it to u however they can – through any Live Update maybe? Lots about it on the Web.

Exzodier, can you give the face? can you show your face, in this case, your name? Why you hide in a nickname? I say in a good terms, please, don’t you get angry with me, i repeat please. Or you was tired a lot because you redacting this terms and conditions? Thank you Exzo 🙂

pff, if they don’t learn from there mistakes in the past, we should
all change to linux or mac, at least u may choose wich programs,
tools and apps u want to run on your pc. Thx for solving this
little prob for me. grtz, Rob.

thanks for the help..
One of antivirus programs stopped it from starting.. but everytime a pop up came on saying it could not start. it really started to bug me..
Despite running error expert and error repair pro this thing kept popping up.
So now hopefully..Im glad to see the last of seaport.exe

Hello 🙂 Sometimes I use Windows Live (Especially Messenger and
Mail. If I set the service to disabled, will it cause those
programs to stop working? If I set it to Manual rather than
Automatic will it only start when needed? Will MS release a patch
to make Seaport work properly, or do I need to open ports! on the
router to allow it to communicate and stop it hogging system???
Sorry I know lots of questions but only found out about it tonight!

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