I've been getting strange IMs from people, saying something along the lines of "Hey, check out this!" where the 'this' is actually a link - I clicked on it the first time, and it tried to install something on my computer. I told it, in computer terms, to kiss off.. and then got a little suspicious when I got the exact same message from three or four people. Turns out none of the ones who sent it to me had any control over when or to whom they sent it, and they'd all gotten it after clicking on the message from someone else. I'm not sure what, if any exist, other effects there are on the computer, but I thought I'd ask here - anyone know what this is, and how to get rid of it? AntiVirus doesn't seem to have the proper update or whatnot for it. Sorry I can't give a better description, I'm really quite horrible with computer problems.

Rule number one: Don't install anything if you don't know what it is. (Go you, you followed that rule)

Report it, and the link if you still have it, to Microsoft. If there is a fix for it already, they can tell you where to get it. Otherwise, they can make an update for it(in about 6 years...).

Better solution, get Linux.

I got that on MSN. When you click it, it sends the same message to all your contacts. I'm not entirely sure whether there is a virus as well or whether it's just a 'hilarious' joke. But it probably went round the entire world. English guy sends to American cousin, cousin sends it to American friends, etc etc, friend of friend of friend sends it to Japanese cousin and so on and so forth.

EDIT: I didn't click and was fine, so just don't click it!

Yea that's a very common method of spreading viruses.

They need you to click the link, once you've done that you've installed it yourself. It then spawns itself to everyone in your contacts list, as well as hitting you with whatever kind of spyware.

Don't ever click a link unless you know what it is, in the same way you wouldn't install a program not knowing what it is.

Yeah I had that for a while, don't open things like that because it will royally screw your computer, and you can't open Nortan to cleanse it due to some mad scripting, I will put a link up here for a removal tool; just put it on a floppy(Its small) and you may want to run it just incase. Send it to the people who sent you that IM

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen....serflog.b.html
Close all backround programs (Excluding MSN messanger) and run it.

Agreed. Windows is only good for 3-D video games. Everything else that Windows can do is outperformed under Linux.

Thanks, everyone!