"Message from SECURITY to ALERT...." pop up on desktop

[tonyvid]

this has appeared the last couple of days on my XP PC and steers me to www.reglink32.com to download stuff and install etc with the usual "failure to act now may lead to data loss and corruption" bit on the end. Is this for real, a virus or just some advertising that has got into my system somehow?

[Plotloss]

What sort of popup is it?

A message box like the message boxes you see when you save a file for instance or an explorer window?

Either way its nothing to worry about, the fix to stop it happening is different though depending on how the message is thrown.

[tonyvid]

it's a smallish gray box and not in explorer. I seem to be getting Macromedia update pop-ups appearing as well if using explorer. I did an update last night for Norton antivirus and a full scan last night but nothing showed.

[Plotloss]

Start>Run>compmgmt.msc

Click Services and Applications on the left hand side

Click Services

Find a service called 'Messenger'

Double click it and select disabled.

They wont bother you again...

[tonyvid]

[Plotloss]

Well it stops the message being thrown.

You can kill the port so the service doesnt recieve the transmission but the result is the same.

If you needed messenger I would suggest the port route on your external connection point but as its rarely used in a network environment and never in a stand alone environment its the least invasive method.

Spybot will do nothing as its not software on the machine thats throwing these popups.