System Alert message

[Guest]

I started receiving this message; System Alert! ( located on bottom of
screen by clock) A balloon pops up and says "system detected virus
activities. These may impact the performance of your computer.Please use
antimalware software to clean system for parasite programs. Click this baloon
to get available software."

I thought " this is a normal pop up scam" Here is the puzzleing part; When
you click on the balloon; it just goes away; does not direct you anywhere.
But it shows up two minutes later. The icon on the taskbar is flashing a
local drive unit with a blue question mark, then it flashes a red question
mark; if you click on icon; it says " system Alert! in yellow; but does not
direct you anywhere. I cannot get rid of the icon. If you have any help on
how to delete this icon, thanks.

 

[RBot]

Umm, it's probably correct. Windows XP does have a CRAPPY built in
feature of telling you that you have a virus. It only has very old
virus codes and defenitions, but it does, SOMETIMES, find legitimate
corruption. Do you have any antivirus or antispyware on your system?
Do you use the internet? If answered No/Yes in relation to the
questions, you need to get some type of protection. If you need free
software, AVG Free is a good utility for antivirus, and Microsoft
Windows Defender is a decent antispyware utility you can get for free
(I run that along with Ad-Aware on one machine, and MWD with SpyBot on
another- I prefer Ad-Aware)

 

[PA Bear]

The machine is already infected. The pop-up balloon is only a symptom of
the infection.

Checking for/Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

When all else fails, HijackThis v1.99.1
(http://aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.zip) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware. **Post
your log to http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7, or other appropriate
forums for expert analysis, not here.**

If the procedures look too complex - and there is no shame in admitting this
isn't your cup of tea - take the machine to a local, reputable and
independent (i.e., not BigBoxStoreUSA) computer repair shop.

 

[Rock]

Umm, it's probably correct. Windows XP does have a CRAPPY built in
feature of telling you that you have a virus. It only has very old
virus codes and defenitions, but it does, SOMETIMES, find legitimate
corruption. Do you have any antivirus or antispyware on your system?
Do you use the internet? If answered No/Yes in relation to the
questions, you need to get some type of protection. If you need free
software, AVG Free is a good utility for antivirus, and Microsoft
Windows Defender is a decent antispyware utility you can get for free
(I run that along with Ad-Aware on one machine, and MWD with SpyBot on
another- I prefer Ad-Aware)

What you write here is totally incorrect. XP has no inbuilt features
related to virus detection. The OP's computer is infected, and it's the
infector that is popping up that message. It's a scam.

 

[Rock]

I started receiving this message; System Alert! ( located on bottom of
screen by clock) A balloon pops up and says "system detected virus
activities. These may impact the performance of your computer.Please use
antimalware software to clean system for parasite programs. Click this
baloon
to get available software."

I thought " this is a normal pop up scam" Here is the puzzleing part; When
you click on the balloon; it just goes away; does not direct you anywhere.
But it shows up two minutes later. The icon on the taskbar is flashing a
local drive unit with a blue question mark, then it flashes a red question
mark; if you click on icon; it says " system Alert! in yellow; but does
not
direct you anywhere. I cannot get rid of the icon. If you have any help on
how to delete this icon, thanks.

That message is popping up because the malware that has infected your
computer is creating that pop up as a scam. See the links that PA Bear
posted to clean your system.

 

[RBot]

The only reason I posted what I posted, was I received this EXACT same
baloon popup and contacted Microsoft before doing anything. THEY told
me it was a built in feature of Windows XP. I would have never
believed it, and I would have never posted this message, if that were
not the case. I haven't researched into this problem any further than
the info given to me by Microsoft support last year. If this is
incorrect, I believe you (because I haven't done any additional
research), I was just trying to help him as I had received this
message before and contacted Microsoft about it.

I will not post again on this subject.

 

[Guest]

lol, i have the same problem here, i just added someone to my myspace, and i
was asked to install some sort of active x program, and then i got hit..