Current UK 'Windows' phone scam!

I have just been subjected to the 'Windows phone scam' but unfortunately they got bored with me disbelieving everything they said and they rang off [after a quarter of an hour!] before getting to the nitty gritty. But arising I have a few questions.

Scam went something like this. Caller claimed to work for a company licensed by Microsoft. Call arose because of error messages logged by MS indicating my pc had been hacked. To 'prove' they were bona fide they would read to me a SECRET and UNIQUE number known ONLY to MS and my computer. This number referred to by caller as the CLSID

Stage 1 of the scam was to RUN: cmd then at the prompt enter: assoc which produces a screen of stuff towards the bottom of which is a long string something like this where x= a letter and 1= a number: <111xxx11-xx1x-11xx-1x1x-11x11xx1x111>

Caller read out the string and I confirmed it was correct. [I had meanwhile booted up another computer and gone through same rigmarole and noted the CLSID was exactly the same! so not very unique.] As further 'proof' that my system was 'hacked' I was instructed to RUN: inf then asked did I recognise any of the files displayed! No I dutifully answered. How many are there? Hundreds I said. "Ooooh my goodness gracious me how terrible!" they said. "There you are; all those naughty files are hacking files!" "Blimey" I said.

Next told to RUN: eventvwr and double click 'application' and later 'system' and to scroll to bottom of screen. "Look at all those warning files! and all those errors! All hacking errors. Your system in imminent danger."

But that's where they got fed up with my lack of co-operation and rang off.

Questions:

1. What is CLSID?
2. What are all the files displayed after the inf command?
3. What are all the warnings and errors shown in the event viewer?
4. Where was the scam leading? What were they after

 

Thanks for all the answers chaslang. The only thing I find odd is you say

and yet the string on my machine is exactly the same as that on another computer I have here and I have seen a screenshot since my original post which also shows the exact same string! The poster of the screenshot thought it was 'unbique' to Windows 7 but both my machines here are XP.

Anyway, thanks again for the info.