How to remove '1 unread message' at Win XP Logon Screen

[Avastfan1]

Dear Avast Forum Gurus and Users,

My question is how can I remove the actual message (or whatever) causing the '1 unread message' at the Windows XP login screen?

My forum browsing and googling have resulted only in solutions involving editing the Windows registry which this n00bie is shit-scared to do!!!

I don't use MS Outlook or any other windows based program to access my email, rather an online web e-mail service which is NOT msn or hotmail.

I have MS Outlook installed as part of MS Office, but have never used it. My firewall (Zone AAlarm Pro) has set MS Outlook to 'kill and terminate on execution' as this n00bie is also shit-scared of spamming trojans etc.

The only thing I can think of which would have caused this stupid message to appear, was when I was surfing with Firefox 2.0.0.13 and I clicked on a link to a newsgroup something like news://xxx.xxx.

An Outlook News Reader screen automatically opened - I didn't open any of the emails listed.

I have tried to find this little shit program that automatically opened without success.

Any help would be much appreciated :-)

Especially any solutions where I can delete the little turd of a file or message which is causing this.

I don't use Shiternet Explorer and run Avast Pro and Zone Alaarm Pro with Firefox and Windows XP with SP2.

I have used CCleaner to clean all the temp files but have been unable to locate the little bastard file.

Apologies for my language, just that Micro$oft really piss me off.

Thanks for all your help users and gurus, I look forward to your response!

Avastfan1

[msdcinfo]

You can use Microsoft Powertoy "TweakUI" to reset or remove the uread mail count. It can be found using Google. Hope this help you.

Klode

[DavidR]

When MS Outlook is installed, I guess you have the default welcome email from MS in much the same way you have when Outlook Express is installed. You could also open MS Outlook  and open the inbox and read/mark as read the email and close MS Outlook never to open it again.

This is just another option and would save trying to get TweakUI as Klode mentioned.