Should I worry about a virus?

It means you visited a page that was designed to run the MS04-013 exploit.

If you have installed the patch Microsoft issued (Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express (837009)) on April 13, 2004 it can't exploit you.

Because your AV program detected something it is likely that it blocked the exploit.

The type of exploit it is is one that attempts to run programs and or install them on your computer. It was not likely to have suceeded.

Incidentally, I recommend that you stick with the most well known AV programs (I recommend Norton, and even when I had a paid for version of the next best (McAfee) I bought Norton) and not their lesser-known and less secure counterparts.

Should I worry about a virus?
But Craven - how about those of us who have tried Norton, but find it incompatible with XP Home? We're stuck with McAfee (who I find very difficult to deal with) or what you refer to as lesser known and less secure protection. I have eTrust EZ Armor and it seems to do very well. Also, they are quick to respond to questions which is a major point in their favor.

Thanks, Craven. One less worry on my small-but-intense mind.

Norton is compatible with Windows XP Home. I run Norton on both XP pro and XP home.

The big guys sometimes have worse tech support, but what matters is speed of the release of the virus definitions and the quality of the heuristics.

Should I worry about a virus?
To pursue this a little further - I had problems with Norton 2004, both AV and Utilities. (I wouldn't get the Utilities again; there are other ways to achieve the same cleanup, etc.) The AV simply didn't do what it was automatically supposed to do; I had to do everything manually. Norton told me this was a known problem with XP Home, which doesn't mean it hits everyone, of course. But it hit me, and I switched. I researched various AV and firewall protections, and read very good things about ezTrust, which persuaded me to try.

Dunno what to tell ya. I've never had any problems with Norton and XP Home. I suspect you might have misunderstood what "Norton" told you or some other miscommunication occured.

I use Norton AntiVirus on every PC I work with (it works just fine on WinXP Home, naturally), but I've read excellent things about NOD32's advanced heuristics engine which, in many people's opinion, is superior to all the competition. (It's not the easiest program for computer neophytes to use, though.)