Experts Warn of New Computer Virus

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Computer security experts today warned of a powerful new computer virus that is infecting millions of computers worldwide.

The new virus, named "Windows Vista", is infuriating users, slowing productivity, and defacing desktops on a global scale.

According to the experts, once the Vista virus infects a host computer, the user will lose control over the majority of their computer's activities.

"Every time a user tries to launch a new program, the virus will taunt them about their own helplessness with its trademark, useless nag screen," said Steve MacAfee, a security expert with CyberGuard Systems. "No matter how many times the same program is run, the virus will waste their time and infuriate them with its cruel prank.

"The Vista Virus also hates other programs," MacAfee said. "It will freeze them, warn users not to run them without permission, and quite often, won't let them run at all.

"It flat out refuses to run a vast array of Windows compatible software, some no older than 2003," he warned. "It's angry, and it likes to kill."

The virus will also corrupt and befoul a user's desktop, marring attractive icons with useless overlays and defacing them with its own graffiti, an ugly four-colored shield, MacAfee said.

"This is the kind of desktop or website defacement that the warez community likes to call 'ownage.' It's typical juvenile delinquents behavior."

Unlike traditional viruses, Vista is not downloaded from email or the Internet, but has been surreptitiously pre-installed on new machines all over the world.

The virus replaces a traditional, functional operating system such as Windows XP SP 2.0 with what one victim described as a broken, bloated, tyrannical state of never-ending corruption and despair.

"It's the kind of thing they'd design under Stalinism -- or in Hell," said Vista victim Kanomi Pikajuna. "I can't imagine what the creators were like. They must have a callous disregard for humanity, or some kind of deep-seated, misanthropy, a psychotic need to inflict pain.

"This is the kind of user experience you would design if you were immersed for eternity in a lake of burning fire, and were damn certain to make sure others shared in your eternal torment."