Annoying Message box ads

[Falcon2004]

Hi

Been getting these on my ain rig for a while now, any idea what they are and how to stop them? I've done all the usual stuff (got rid of suspicious progs and prcesses, run a virus scan and run ad-aware) but to no avail. A screenshot of one is below, I'll upload more shots when I get more and remembr to save them...lol

Falcon

Annoying Message Box:

[Paul Adams]

Quick fix:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/docs/messagepopup/

However, I would strongly recommend the use of a personal firewall as this would prevent this too, as well as preventing any nasties taking advantage of vulnerabilities in your OS or apps.

[Falcon2004]

Ok, thanks for that, I'm using XPs built in firewall for now, I will *HOPEFULY* be getting a cheap/free box to run smoothwall on soon so I'll jsut stick with the windows one untill I know for sure if im getting a cheap box or not.

Thanks
Falcon

[Paul Adams]

Despite some posters' aversions to them, I would still recommend a personal firewall in addition to a network one (I can't bring myself to call them "hardware" firewalls).

Protecting your perimeter is one thing, but the application protection offered by personal firewalls can sometimes be illuminating - spyware, trojans, apps that report home, etc. are often picked up before they are allowed to send a single packet out of the machine.

I would also add that I play plenty of online games and the performance is not noticeably reduced when using a personal firewall (not the 3 or 4 flavours I have tested in the past anyway).

[Falcon2004]

I see your point, but tbh I really dont want the haslte of setting up individual firewalls on what will be a total of 5 machines...I keep most apps and stuff out of the PC anyway (Im pretty parnoid about most thing ) so stuff lie that doesn't really get a change to spawn. I run ad-aware and AVG every week and rregularly clear up crap and look for programs that shouldnt be there. So I';m probably gonna stick with jsut smoothwall

[Rabs]

Download xpantispy and check the disable messaging service. Problem solved.

[chez]

The pic isn't working, but have you disabled the messenger service?

If not, try that (Type services.msc in a run command and then disable the service from there).

It doesn't stop MSN messenger from working, just stops bloody annoying messages which seem to pop up from nowhere!)