I only have WLM installed so far. When it is closed there are two prosesses and one service listed in Task Manager, all having to do with "Windows Live ID sign-in assistant". By unchecking the service "WLIDSVC" in msconfig and rebooting, all three disappear. The sign-in of WLM continues to work fine as far as I can tell. So closing the program and stopping the ID service prevents any background process.