if the world is really this braindead

[sanchopanza65]

It's also possible that that means her computer isgetting a virus. I've fallen for those stupid pop-up ads twice now, and those things are nasty. It'll give your comp a Vundotrojan, which kill window explorer and most anti-virus software.

[Shalom]

that warning might ahve also have been a malware scam

That warning was definitely a malware scam. No "may have been" about it, that's how she got infected in the first place. Pain in the @$$ to get rid of, too; if it's the one I'm thinking of, it hooks both winlogon.exe and explorer.exe, and if you delete the malware's executable, one or both of them will just put it back next time you reboot. Trick is to first start your virus scanner, load process explorer and use it to suspend winlogon and explorer (right click on the process and select "suspend"), then you delete the malware's executable with the antivirus program. Then you pull the plug on the computer. (This is normally not the recommended way to shut down, but without winlogon running there's no way to shut down the correct way, and if winlogon is running, your malware will just pop right back up again as soon as you reboot.) This makes it go away for good.

Of course there is no way in Hell that you are going to be able to babysit a luser like that through all those steps. It was her own stupidity in believing that pop-up that got her infected in the first place, so I can't see where she'll be able to follow such complex directions. Not to mention anything that goes wrong on that computer until the end of time will automatically be your fault and will have to be fixed on your company's nickel. I'd send her to a repair shop. Preferably one whose employees you don't like, I wouldn't wish this person as a customer on my friends...

[Geek King]

I'd just like to point out that we have several threads about these viruses in the Tech Help area, including methods to be rid of them that don't usually mean burning your computer and restarting from bare sillica. Feel free to stop in and ask for help anytime.