Macromedia Flash warning=virus/trojan?

[artyrachel]

I had a weird gray warning message come up on my computer yesterday that said something to the effect of "Macromedia Flash has detected an error..." or something and it mentioned that it might be on my computer or a network computer. It had a line of numbers that didn't mean anything to me, then it had 2 buttons an "OK" and a "Settings..." It said to click Settings... to allow change/allow. I can't remember all of it. It just seemed suspicious. I clicked "Settings..." hoping to get another window, but nothing happened. I quickly shut down my computer in case it was a virus or something, and when I turned it back on, I ran AdAware, Norton Anti-Virus and Trojan Hunter, but nothing came up in any of the scans. I was just wondering if anyone knew what that window might have been and if it's a problem. Thanks in advance!

[Random Confusion]

It's hard to say without the exact message or knowing what was running at the time this happened.

My inclination is to boot to safe mode and run a full NAV scan of the system - or better yet boot to a scan disk with recent virus defs and run that. Otherwise use XPs rollback to go back a rev before whatever might have been added got put on.

When something like that comes up, I always hit that "X" in the corner and never the buttons given. The buttons can always be configured to be two things of equal evil.

RC

[artyrachel]

just to give more info on what was happeneing when it came up:

i'm pretty sure it wasn't through an internet explorer browser. i had AOL open and i did have an IE window open, but i don't think it came from that (as it wasn't a popup and it didn't bring the IE window up). i didn't have any AOL emails open or anything. i usually just hit the X in the corner, too, but i don't think it had one.

and speaking of XP's rollback (i'm guessing you mean through system restore?), i can never get that to work. i tried it this morning on the computer in question, and it said it couldn't restore. i have another computer that has also said that. what gives? system restore doesn't seem to be very worthwhile, as far as i've seen. i used to have roxio goback (on ME), and i loved that, but it wouldn't install on XP. is there any alternative to that for XP?

i appreciate your suggestions, and i'll try both. thanks!

[Random Confusion]

Two things come to mind, & both of them are "old" information back from my Compaq days (When XP was just coming out and we were beta-ing it.)

First, it may have been a pop-up message from Microsoft Messenger. It's not the same IM device that you may be thinking of, but a service that runs on all systems by default to allow messages to be sent to systems over the network. A lot of pop-ups are sent that way to any listening systems, and not many people who aren't sysadmins know about it and turn it off. Log in as administrator on the local box, (I'm old-school, so the directions may be not as flashy) right-click on My Computer, & click "Manage". From there, expand Services and Applications, and click on Services. Find the service called "Messenger" and disable it by right-clicking on it, choose properties, and for the drop-down "Startup Type" choose "Disable", save/ok and done. This will turn off the service that allows pop-up messages to show up from the network/internet.

Secondly, I don't use XP myself for it's not as "User intuitive" as Microsoft claims, but you have to set a rollback point yourself (usually encouraged before you install a new application or update to allow you to back to the pre-install point) that you later goto if needed. If you've never set such a point, then you won't be able to do it.

Actually, I think I'm thinking of System Restore points more than rollback (rollback is for drivers http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/russel_july09.mspx whereas System Restore http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx is for the entire system.... well, the important bits at least.)

RC