Jeremy said:
I reinstalled XP yesterday and now I am constantly getting a popup from
"Messenger Service" saying that my computer "may have critical errors in
the
registry and file system." It tells me to visit a several different
websites
to fix this problem, but I don't know if this really is a problem, or just
some creative popup ads. I get one about every three minutes, so it gets
very
annoying. Any help or advice is appreciated.
Jeremy
If you visited any of the websites you have very likely been infected with
spyware. Even if you didn't visit those sites you are probably infected with
one or more worms just by being connected to the internet. If your version
of XP does not have SP2 then you should not connect to the internet without
a firewall installed. A firewall will stop the popups you received and stop
the worms from infecting your computer. As you just installed XP I would
repeat the process but not connected to the internet. Once XP is reinstalled
install a firewall before connecting to the internet. Once the firewall is
installed, immediately download and install the critical updates from
Windows Updates before anything else. You may have to visit the Windows
Update site several times before you have all the critical updates. Once you
have done this you are relatively safe and can continue with downloading and
installing the latest drivers and your programs. Make sure one of the
programs is an antivirus application.
Once again, this is important, after reinstalling Windows do not connect to
the internet for anything, including Windows Updates or activation, without
a firewall installed. You could be infected within seconds of connecting to
the internet. See the following links for some free firewall software and
details about how your computer will be infected without a firewall.
http://www.avantgarde.com/ttln113004.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;283673#2
See the section titled "Enable Intenet Connection Firewall in Windows XP or
Windows XP SP1"
www.zonelabs.com
www.kerio.com
http://www.free-firewall.org/
Kerry
