If you get a link saying holy....look at this and a link follows it on msn then don't look at the link. It's a virus and it will freeze your computer for a while whilst it opens conversations with your contacts and sends them that. If any of you have experienced this can you please tell me and how you got rid of it. A few of my friends have it but it is hard to tell them how I got rid of it.

Edited at 18:18 Wed 21/03/07 (GMT)

So, is this a pop up that appears or one of them silly links that appear under your conversation?

Thankyou for passing that on. Ive not come across such a link but i prob would of clicked on it! Thanks again

It's a link that appears in the conversation. But if you download it then it will put itself in plaves like this on mine
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\NW93K8VV

and then i had to delete it from there. But I doubt that some people who do have it will be able to get to it because I could only get to the file using winRAR. It is called contactinfo.scr and apparently is a screen saver application.
Once it has been downloaded then it will open up a conversation window for every single one of your contacts and pass it on to them.

i had one sent to me via msn. the guy asked if it was a pic of me because it looked like me. so nosey jen clicked it and it tried to get me to install something. i clicked no and asked the guy wat i was installing and he said it was a virus. he thought it was dead funny so i blocked and deleted him.

anyway moral of the story is dont download anything or install anything random that you find on msn

Thanks for that information. Great help

Lol. Well Beannie I'm like the test tube baby for everything. I always do stupid things like what I did earlier...I just havent learnt from my lesson yet lol.

attention ppl i have the virus from hell on msn at the moment. its not on my computer its on my mates laptop. i signed in on it and its sending a "photo album" to everyone on my contacts list. its in the form of a zip file! DO NOT OPEN ANYTHING I SEND YOU

i am currently running a scan using avg free and im trying to sort it out but while im in the process of it if i sign in to msn and i try and send u something it isnt me!!!

This virus is very clever its even writing to you.

for example : hey can you have a look at my photo album that i made please mate?

I cannot stress this enough, do not open anything i send you.

This is good advice

If you don't know the sender, don't open it.

(sorry for stating the obvious)

beannie and the_end i hope no damage has been caused

Im going to make this sticky for a while to draw it to the attention of other users

Edited at 09:16 Tue 17/04/07 (BST)

avg free picked up the virus and healed it but when i opened msn it did it again.

the advice that dont open to strangers is no good because you pretty much know everyone on ur contacts list - well i do anyway. Also the virus is pretty clever it talks to you like the sender would.

"hey would you lokk at this photo album i just made please mate"

does anyone have any info on how to get rid of it? should i delete it once its healed or will that do more damage?

Be careful jen when i had the virus that the_end is talkin about it said that it had gone away... it persisted to delete my windows even though the virus had been apparently "deleted." I may be true yours has gone but I advise you to say vidulant.

its hasnt gone unfortunately thats why i was wondering should i delete it. The anti virus stuff healed it and put it in the virus vault. Then i opened msn again and it re appeared. So do i delete it next time the virus scan picks it up or not?

Errmm truthfuly I wouldnt know that but advise you to back stuff up as if it has got to deep in the system it may be too late. I no in my case the prob was that it kept saying that it had gone when it simply had not!

There is another one going round that says www.improfile blah blah blah then it has your e-mail address, loads of people I know have had this and it's not done their computer much good.

Although there are a lot of versions of this about, dont be distracted in thinking its an "MSN only" virus. Any instant messenger or email system supporting HTML links can send/recieve these trojans, which then use various means (this time MSN Messenger) to distribute themselves.

The simple rule is NEVER click on a link you are not expecting to find, whether via MSN, Email or Browsing.

Very often these trojans skip the virus checkers because by clicking the link you have "agreed" to install them.

Also, its very important to remember the user who "sent" you the link, wont know, so if you really want to be sure, just ask them!

If you have windows XP, then using the system restore to restore the computer to a time before the virus was installed will clean it up nicely.

spinner have you got any advice of what sort of software people should use to prevent this bug/virus from occurring.

Edited at 16:52 Tue 17/04/07 (BST)

Can i warn this might not work! The top virus starts by deleting all of your back up files and ways to reset so it prevents a system restore working! It deletes all this before doing anything anymore obvious so by the time you realise you need to do a restore, the files to do this have been deleted and or corrupted!

I only know this as I lost everything on my laptop and had to start again completely and get a new copy of windows!

Edited at 17:02 Tue 17/04/07 (BST)

YAWN!

tired craig? damn men

Virus' these days! There are some bad ones around. " my mum jokes" - Thats one going around, it freeze's the computer and then shuts down after a while. I'm lucky not to get these sent to me, eventhough, I get warned before downloading if it has a virus in it, so I'm glad