No, I didn't know this was because of a worm virus. It didn't seem to follow the rules of the Blaster worm and I certainly wasn't aware of another. Thanks Brad. This page fits the specs perfectly. There is only one problem. I'll include it below in the form of the letter that I just sent to my ISP (ntl). I really thought this problem had been pretty much cleared up, but I'm not so sure now.
I think this has been plaguing me now for about four or five months and I'm ready to kill the people behind this thing
The letter -
"Dear Sir / Madam,
RE: Suspected malicious virus
This is just to inform you of a problem I encountered yesterday whilst trying to connect to the internet. I hoped that you might be able to help me.
Yesterday, around 16:00, I connected to the internet and was able to use the connection for various purposes, but by around 18:00 I tried to reconnect after a break but found that I was unable to. This problem occured with both my laptop and my old PC, leading me to think that it was some sort of problem with the ISP, which according to the error messages seemed to be slow in responding.
I later attempted to connect and was able to do so (though this may have been after specifying the regional area that I was able to connect from by making use of the connectivity and security options), thus allowing me to run a few net-related programs, but not the internet nor MSN Messenger, the details of which are quoted below:
'We could not connect you to MSN Messenger. It appears you are behind a firewall that does not allow a direct connection to the internet. We tried to sign you in through an HTTP proxy, but your Internet Explorer proxy settings are either missing or incorrect. To adjust your IE proxy settings, click the IE Tools menu, click Internet options, click the Connections tab, and then click LAN settings.'
Other error messages include the recommendation, upon failing to establish a proper internet connection, to use an H.323 gateway or proxy.
This situation is problematised by a malicious virus that invaded my system a few months ago, resulting in messages on my laptop screen, a slowdown in the programs I was runnning and a lot of downloaded files I had not personally downloaded, including much that was detected as having a virus. However, a great deal of this has been taken care of through the program 'Ad-aware'.
I need to establish if this new problem is something that is definitely focused upon my machine or if it is my ISP before I can resolve this situation. Could you please advise me and offer any technical assistance you could suggest? I would be very grateful as the virus had been kept at bay by a series of steps taken to neutralise its effects but I believe that this is may be another, albeit greatly reduced, threat from the same source.
Yours faithfully....etc. etc."