Getting Pop Ups when not online?

Some sort of Scumware?

[dazz]

My home PC is getting some sort of messenger pop up about every 30 mins or so, even when I am offline or have just turned on the computer?

I have installed and ran AdAware and it found quite a few things....But the pop ups have continued!

Has this ever happened to anyone or could anyone advise me of how to get rid of them!

Please help its doing my head in. :(

[ritch_b]

Had something similar to this on PC running NT Server and although running Spybot Search & Destroy found plenty to clean up, the 'pop ups' continued.

Turned out to be some virus or another, so could be worth getting the latest patches for whatever AV kit you use & having a scan.

Not sure if that helps any!

R.

[dmorison]

Hiya,

This isn't actually anything untoward that has been installed - people are abusing the Messenger Service (a component of Windows Networking) to send commercial messages to computers that are running the service.

The Messenger Service (not to be confused with MSN Messenger) is intended as a systems administration tool within large companies - if your sysadmin is about to take a server down he can send a message which will generate the pop-up that you are seeing on your computer on all computers on the network.

More information:

[wired.com...]

and how to disable it:

[auburn.edu...]

Hope this helps!

[dazz]

dmorison!

You are now my hero :)

Ill sort it when I get home.

[chris_f]

Failing that, site search foo. I had the problem and posted the solution here a while a go. Basically, you have to disable the messenger service (You can do this by installing Linux or MacOS ;)).

Chris

[mil2k]

You can do this by installing Linux or MacOS

LMAO

[Hawkgirl]

I think you can also head it off at the pass by making sure you have a basic firewall up and running.

Just this week my Mom was getting annoyed with those silly pop-ups, too - so while I had her on the phone I coached her in how to install a free firewall package and that did the trick.

[ShawnR]

Dazz, you say "...even when I am offline...". Messenger pop-up spam only occurs when you are online. i.e. Something needs to send you a message. Do they look like messenger pop-ups? (i.e. Windows alert boxes with an 'OK' button). If the pop-ups occur when you are offline, and they look like messenger po-ups, they may be something legit, like a printer telling you it has run out of paper, rather than scumware/spam.