False MSN advertisement or not?

First a strange thing has happened when I turned on my computer. A passport
login window came up out of nowhere asking for my password. I am afraid I may
have inadvertently allowed myself to be hacked. How can I find out for sure
if I have?
Secondly after this I immediately received this in my e-mail:
From: MSN Search
Date: 02/03/05 19:51:06
To: soulsentinal@hotmail.com
Subject: Introducing the more precise, more powerful new MSN Search.
The website address comes up as:
http://www.imagine-msn.com/search/tour/desktop.aspx
The claim of this site is that it can give you a more precise serch engine
on your desktop.

PA
Fri Feb 04 00:00:17 CST 2005

1. Did you log-in to this "Passport"? Was it indeed a .NET Passport prompt,
as far as you know?

2. Are you an MSN subscriber?

3. The email is legit and was sent to you based on your MSN/Hotmail
preferences.

4. Do you realize everyone reading your post now knows your Hotmail address?
This includes Trojans which 'harvest' addresses from these newsgroups (in
whatever format) as well as from newsgroup posts downloaded onto someone's
machine.

Never post your real address in a newsgroup post!
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE) & Security


SoulSentinal wrote:
> First a strange thing has happened when I turned on my computer. A
> passport login window came up out of nowhere asking for my password. I am
> afraid I may have inadvertently allowed myself to be hacked. How can I
> find out for sure if I have?
> Secondly after this I immediately received this in my e-mail:
> From: MSN Search
> Date: 02/03/05 19:51:06
> To: soulsentinal@hotmail.com
> Subject: Introducing the more precise, more powerful new MSN Search.
> The website address comes up as:
> http://www.imagine-msn.com/search/tour/desktop.aspx
> The claim of this site is that it can give you a more precise serch engine
> on your desktop.