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Bizarre messages

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I felt that even though I think XP is awful, I had to play with it to see just how bad it really is. Apart from the fact that my PC used to fly with 98 and never crashed and XP had made it impossibly slow (yes it does have 512Mb ram and a 3GHz cpu...) and crashes like a pig every few hours, I have a problem which won't go away.

Whenever I connect to the internet (DSL), I get pop up messages inviting me to view pornographic pictures on some web-site. I uninstalled MSN Messenger but these messages keep popping up, perhaps every five minutes. The message says it is being sent to a particular IP address, which certainly isn't mine! The messages seem to be related to a system program called csrss.exe which appears to be a Client Server Remote access tool, which when I try to shut it down, tells me it's a key component and can't be terminated. Any clues?!!! It doesn't seem to do any harm but it's a right royal pain in the arse!

5 replies

by guruofdos

The version of Windows is XP Professional (genuine, boxed and licenced), which I picked up for ?5 ($7.50) at a yard sale, because it seems most people here prefer W98 and most people go back to 98 after trying XP!!

by guruofdos

OK....since posting this question I found this information

http://tinyurl.com/ax5d

so I'm modifying this question to ask...

Why did Microshaft include this feature to give anyone in the world the ability to pop unwanted messages onto MY pc?!!!

by dave.osborne

The messenger service was primarily built into windows to make it easy for admins to post messages to all their users quickly. Instead of sending email which the users might or might not check, this service pops up a window on the user's desktop which displays over everything else and will remain until closed. This information was found in windows help about services. You can also find minimal information about this specific service by clicking on it's properties box.

As you stated in your comment, you have found the way to disable the messenger service to stop the popup ads. It can also be done by blocking port 135. Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/bx6b for more information.

Hope this helps.

-Dave

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