Annoying registry popup

[Greg]

Hi

Got an annoying pop up that keeps appearing on my Mum's laptop.

Message such as the system registry is corrupt, or 47 errors have been found.

It keeps giving a different website address each time to go to fix the registry. I can't see there being anything wrong with the reg as the pc works fine. This looks like some dodgy popup to me. I haven't been to the websites mentioned incase something nasty happens.

Latest website was e-regpatch.com and another www.PCRegFix.com

Any ideas?

I have already run adaware but it didn't find the problem.

Thanks
Greg

[Chris Muriel]

Yes, you have a trojan at work here.
See if the latest Adaware and/or virus checkers will remove it.

Chris Muriel, Manchester.

[Johnnie]

I am currently using Microsofts(yeah I know!) Giant Beta Antispyware program,which is currently free and personally I think is very good

It has 'realtime protection' which monitors your PC and warns you about anything dodgy going on.

[Johnnie]

Sounds as though you have the messenger service running (not MSN messenger), use administrative tools (start/control panel/administrative tools/services) do disable this service which will stop those annoying pop-up messages.

[smelly]

Originally Posted by GregHook

Hi

Got an annoying pop up that keeps appearing on my Mum's laptop.

Message such as the system registry is corrupt, or 47 errors have been found.

It keeps giving a different website address each time to go to fix the registry. I can't see there being anything wrong with the reg as the pc works fine. This looks like some dodgy popup to me. I haven't been to the websites mentioned incase something nasty happens.

Latest website was e-regpatch.com and another www.PCRegFix.com

Any ideas?

I have already run adaware but it didn't find the problem.

Thanks
Greg

I get exactly the same on my laptop - I think only when I go to one particular site - TVTome - so I thought it was a pop up just linked to that site. Adaware and AVG haven't picked it up and my laptop seems to be working fine so I just close it every time.

Sounds as though you have the messenger service running (not MSN messenger), use administrative tools (start/control panel/administrative tools/services) do disable this service which will stop those annoying pop-up messages.

My messenger service is already disabled but it still pops up. Its the only one that does.

[Greg]

Thanks all, I will give my Mum some things to try out. It is more of a nuisance than anything.

[ClumsyBiker]

Any popup that occurs spuriously in Windows, and wants you to visit some website to get a "fix" tool or utility is to be regarded with the utmost suspicion.

Both the suggestions from this thread of trojan infection, and messenger service are possible.

Here are some excellent tools I use whenever I put a PC together for someone - all are free to use, or are available in free versions:

Anti-Virus: AVG from grisoft
Anti-Spyware: Ad-Aware Personal SE from lavasoft , Spybot-Search & Destroy and a copy of CWShredder is always handy, because if you get the CoolWebSearch spyware on your machine it's a complete b*tch to get rid of.

Good luck!
Clumsy.

[Slinkoff]

i second those recommendations from Clumsy. Spybot combined with Adaware remove everything and Spybot's registry watcher makes it hard for any new spyware load itself in your registry. The best defence of all is to switch to Firefox. And consider disabling javascript.