This started popping up on my laptop on Tuesday.

I'm assuming its malicious, since I don't think Microsoft has evolved to the point where they use triple exclamation points!!!

I don't have an antivirus program, since windows defender is supposed to be OK for that. Should I have one? If so is there a good free one? I tried housecall, but it said it couldn't do anything after finding three problems on my system.

Hum, for some reason the edit button has disappeared.

My wife pressed OK once, and it brought her to a web page which looked like it was scanning our files, then asked us to download something, which she didn't do.

You should have one. http://www.free-av.com/

Or try avast.

www.avast.com

OK, I took your advice, and ran the free antivirus.

now when I start up my computer I get an error which says "error loading dll32. the specified module could not be found."

And to add a cherry on top my internet stopped working on the computer I ran the AV scan on after the scan.

The googles say that dll32 is a malicious back door program, and that I should remove it. could this be part of the virus's strategy to get me to reinstall the dll32 program?

augh.

Weird, I ran the googles again, and a forum on cnet recommended checking the proxy settings in internet explorer. I checked and lo and behold the proxy settings for the lan connections were turned on.

maybe that was the viruses attempt to get me to re-install it.

Yup, you got spyware fo'sho.

Turn off your proxy settings, google Malwarebytes, install that, run it, get some coffee, reboot, thank me later.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Malwarebytes.org

The final fuck you from this virus, it activated the pass code on my iTouch. I had to restore it to get in.

Thanks for the malwarebytes, it's gettin' put on tomorrow morning.

^That is shitty, never hear of anything like that

Its very similar to something I got a while back. It prompts you to download "XP Anti Virus" which in itself is the virus. Don't do iiiiiit! Rather use something reliable.