detect a virus in email

For months I have been getting emails, allegedly from Hotmail such as the one below:

"....Due to increased spam and phishing activities globally, a DGTFX trojan virus has been detected in your windows live folders. Your email account will be upgraded with our new secure 1024-bit RSA key anti-virus firewall to prevent damage to our email servers and to your important files. Click your reply tab, fill the columns below and send back to us or your email account will be terminated to avoid spread of the virus..." and asking me to provide them with my user name, password, year of birth and country.

 I have responded to each of these requests with an email asking for a letter request and/or refusing to provide them with my password etc. 

I have never gotten a response - only these random emails...

Is this for real or is it a scam to hijack my account?

Thanks.

.