warnings whils surfing

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Guest

I've been getting a lot of alerts warnings about "your registry file is
damaged" when I surf the net and directing me to sites like regfixit. (I've
not followed their "advice"!)

I've tracked the problem down to the fact that I was surfing with
Administraor privilages (now changed) and have stopped the warnings by
dissabling the Messenger Service as follows:
Control Panel - Admin tools - Services - Messenger - disable

That's worked fine but ...
Neither AdAware or Spybot have discovered anything untoward.
Neither AVG or ZoneAlarm have alerted me about any problems.
MS Malicious Software Removal Tool found no problems.

But I'm assuming just turning of a Service hasn't cured the problem, just
eliminated the symptoms, and somewhere there's something still on my HD that
shouldn't be there.
Any ideas on how to track it down and eliminate it completely?

(I'm using IE6 on Win2K service pack 4.)
 
You should not be getting messenger popups if your firewall is configured
correctly but there is no harm in disabling it if you do not need it. I
would go to one of the self scan sites like http://scan.sygatetech.com/ to
test your firewall settings. Also make sure that all your spyware and
malware programs are current as of today with updates from the publishers
websites and scan for malware and spyware in Safe Mode also. If problems
persist I would also post at one of the popular spyware forums such as
CastleCops as shown in the link below

http://castlecops.com/f84-Spyware_Tools.html
 
Why Doesnt This Work? said:
I've been getting a lot of alerts warnings about "your registry file is
damaged" when I surf the net and directing me to sites like regfixit.
(I've
not followed their "advice"!)

I've tracked the problem down to the fact that I was surfing with
Administraor privilages (now changed) and have stopped the warnings by
dissabling the Messenger Service as follows:
Control Panel - Admin tools - Services - Messenger - disable

That's worked fine but ...
Neither AdAware or Spybot have discovered anything untoward.
Neither AVG or ZoneAlarm have alerted me about any problems.
MS Malicious Software Removal Tool found no problems.
Click to expand...


Just because these pop ups were telling you there was a problem doesn't mean
there was one, they obviously wanted you to think there was to persuade you
to install their software which is undoubtedly spyware itself. I would check
the system regularly as you have done and make sure all is patched from
Windows update (Very important new patch out yesterday which is a must have)
and pay attention to any Zone Alarm warnings... you could reset that and
start over by giving permissions as they are asked for which is probably
what you did to begin with right?

Charlie
 
I have had an identical problem on several of my Win/2K workstations.

I tried several spyware removal tools, but none were able remove the
ad/spyware until I tried Webroot's Spy Sweeper. This program removed
the spyware and the problem went away.

I wonder if some of the spyware companies are paying big bucks to
avoid having their spyware removed? I wouldn't be surprised!
 
Perhaps the problem is that the "Messenger" service is actually a legitimate
service that some still wish to use, and can use given the right situation,
so to simply include disabling it by default would amount to crippling a
windows service for some users. If we are talking about the same thing here
it is not "Spyware", just PITA Advertising.

Charlie
 
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