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cookiemonster - 31 Aug 2006 21:20 GMT

Can somebody help me with this? I get this pop-up window that says it's from
"messenger" and tells me my registry is corrupted. Then, proceeds to offer a
web-site to fix the issue. One site is reg32.com and may others. This pops
up probably once an hour. Has this happened to anyone before? I also might
add that I recently did a restore and only installed norton and sbc dsl.

Thanks for any assistance.

y

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Jonathan Kay [MVP] - 31 Aug 2006 22:02 GMT

Greetings,

This is "Messenger Service" spam coming from the "Messenger Service" in Windows. It is -not-
related to Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger. This service should
actually be turned off by default when installing Service
Pack 2 of XP, I'd suggest installing that immediately:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

However, as a temporary solution before you install SP2, you can just turn off the Messenger
Service. To do so, click Start, then Run, enter "services.msc" and click OK. Scroll down to
"Messenger", select it, right-click and then choose Properties. Under startup type, choose
'Disabled' and then choose the 'Stop' button. After the service is stopped, click OK.
Nothing in Windows or any real third-party applications should be effected by this.

You could also turn on the Windows XP Firewall to kill these as well (SP2 will also turn it
on).

Signature

Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--

> Can somebody help me with this? I get this pop-up window that says it's from
> "messenger" and tells me my registry is corrupted. Then, proceeds to offer a
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> y

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