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These hoaxes are the grandchildren of the original computer virus hoax, the 'Good Times' virus. Born in 1994, the 'Good Times' virus was supposedly spread by email and would erase your hard drive if opened. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Hoaxsters haven't improved on the original formula.
Back in 1994 when 'Good Times' first appeared, computer experts could easily squash 'Good Times' hoaxes by noting that mail applications do not automatically execute the contents of emails and thus could not spread a virus. No longer, thanks to Microsoft's lust for 'integration'.
Microsoft makes several products that, due to poorly thought out features, poor computer security and dangerous default configuration, allow computer viruses to spread via email. And computer virus writers did not fail to exploit the weaknesses of Microsoft software and concocted real email viruses, most prominently the 'Love Letter' and 'Melissa' viruses, that bedeviled millions of computers worldwide.
One thing to note, the Urban Legend Zeitgeist does not specialize in analysis of computer virus warnings. There are a number of sites that do, see the links below.
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Urban Legend Zeitgeist: Yet More Common Computer Virus Hoaxes