'System Messenger' alerts grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

**Goldberg** · 17th June 2005

My mam and the kids cannot be trusted.

If there is a virus, worm, dodgy website pop up to be got they get it!! However none of them have ever been to a dodgy site etc....... hmmmmmm...

Anyhow, the latest installment of Goldbergs Family PC is as follows.

Everytime they go online they get 'System Message' which stays 'ontop' and when clicked comes back in a different guise. They advise that you goto a website to d/l some software to fix the registry etc....... a mae had the same problem but got someone to sort it.

THis is on top of the Sasser worm i removed yesterday! But this blighter is stubborn and will NOT go away?

Any ideas/help?

**burner1** · 17th June 2005

You could try and go into the services applet (On win 2000 it's in control panel - administrative tools- services, not sure of XP) and see if messenger service is started, if it is, right click it and stop it, then change it to disabled.. (This isn't MSN messenger by the way),some of these annoying pop ups use that facility to spam. failing that, get hold of a copy of 'hijack this' and run it, click on the scan option, it will show you what you have running, and if there is something that looks like spam etc.. click on the fix option... be careful with this proggy though, you could end up deleting something critical to windows!

**Goldberg** · 17th June 2005

Cheers mate, will try this tonight.

**SatanicHare** · 17th June 2005

Very interested in the outcome of this, just formated and reinstalled xp home on my sisters laptop, and as soon as she dialed into her isp she began getting these messages as well. Couldn't understand it as it was a clean install and had antivirus and firewall installed. Still to install any service packs but i can only assume it's an exploit of some sort that needs patching

**Goldberg** · 17th June 2005

We'll I know it's nothing to do with themhaving your IP as the PC one changes everytime it connects, so it is something sending out.

After looking for a Sasser fix, I found out that no matter how many times you format a HD, some virus's can actually stay! I guess a way around may be to install windows in a different folder?

**schematic** · 17th June 2005

@SatanicHare

If you mean the grey messege's that pop up just click start/run type msconfig click ok, click services tab, scroll down to messenger, untick it and reboot, when you reboot System configuration utilty will appear, tick the "dont show this blah blah" box and click ok..

**Goldberg** · 17th June 2005

cool will lso try that

**Goldberg** · 17th June 2005

Originally Posted by schematic

@SatanicHare

If you mean the grey messege's that pop up just click start/run type msconfig click ok, click services tab, scroll down to messenger, untick it and reboot, when you reboot System configuration utilty will appear, tick the "dont show this blah blah" box and click ok..

Right did this and works fantastic

**SatanicHare** · 18th June 2005

Will also give this a try, sounds like it will do the trick, cheers m8

**Goldberg** · 18th June 2005

My only concern is it might stop any genuine messages?

Also when I was in MSCONFIG I noticed some running apps that had no name etc... Do you think these may be spyware?

**DelTrotter** · 19th June 2005

yes msn messenger stops working i had the same problem.
my msn has stopped working

what i did, full windows updates installed, microsoft anti spyware full scan, plus spybot updated and do full scan they do miss ones.

full anti virus scan using symantec at the mo seems good and stable.
make sure you have a decent firewall, turn off Remote registry in services.

**shadowdancer** · 20th June 2005

the messenger service is of no real use to anyone on a single pc. its only of use when you are running a multiple user network.
I have used it in previous jobs to be alerted when a batch script or a scheduled job on a server is completed.
normal users have no use for it and it is best disabled in my opinion.