windows "Registry" problem

[kryptonic]

I formated my harddrive yesterday and did a dual boot with windowsXP and PCBSD. While using XP I kept getting this popup that looks like an XP message box that says "There is errors in your registry got fix this problem go to www.whateversite.com. So I went to the site and it wants me to pay for some program. It gives me a different website eachtime and in the message it says if you buy this program you will not receive this message anymore. The message says it from System Alert and it gives the date and time. I ran Spybot S&D and it didnt help. Ill post a screenshot of the message when i get home. Any suggestions?

[kryptonic]

sorry about the dual post can a mod please delete one?

[JPnyc]

1st thing I would do is run this . Spybot is ok but nowhere near as thorough as panda. Only problem is panda doesn't remove spyware, just viruses, but 1st things 1st. Let's 1st find out for certain if there IS any spyware, then we can worry about removing.

[nebulus200]

Running a firewall (either at your network boundary) or on your local system that doesn't allow external connections? Seen this before with people that were still running the messenger service (not msn messenger, but the netbios messenger service) that didn't filter the incoming traffic...So its not necessarily 'spyware' on your system that could be the source of the messages...Most of the times I saw this kind of spam, the spammer would connect directly to the program's port (most microsoft ephemerals start at 1025 and go to around 1034, depending on how much crap you are running) instead of first querying the RPC (135) to find the right port...Assuming XP SP2, try from the command prompt running: netstat -nab, it should show you every port open on your system and what program is listening to it (and any external addresses connected to those services)...



/neb

[SirDice]

By formatting and setting up dual boot I'm assuming you reinstalled XP? Did you install the latest servicepack and patches after that?

[kryptonic]

Yes i reinstalled XP it was SP2. I haven't pached the system yet (that will come later tonight).

[vanman]

I am going with my gut here..I run spyware doctor zonealarm and avg antivirus and have been pretty lucky so far..Do not forget the all important windows firewall if you do not have any other..I know zonealarm is annoying at first because it will ask you permissions for just about everything going in and out but you should know by now what is permitted and what not..there after it runs qiute nicely i think..just my 2 cents..

[kryptonic]

Ive got the windows firewall enabled. Ill check out zonealarm when I get home though. Im just trying to get rid of those annoying messages.

[JPnyc]

Wait, I re-read it and I think I know what it is. This explains how to turn off the internal server messaging in win2k and XP (also in NT). It's often used to spam, I had to turn it off for the same reason. I didn't catch the description you gave the 1st time through.

[kryptonic]

Thanks JP ill try it when I get home and let you know if it worked