I have finally decided to upgrade. Wasn’t an easy decision considering how many issues there are. But since I decided on it because more and more games are being released with vista in mind. My first problem started almost instantly. As soon as I installed it I was infected with virtumonde and Vundo mallware. This two are the worse of the bunch and are the hardest to remove. Fix for Vundo is fairly easy to do though, but it can hide very easy and if one isn’t going to follow all the steps it ain’t gonna work (duh).

VirtuMonde is a whole another story. This thing is been programmed to reproduce itself and hide like crazy. There is a fix for it, but it is very risky as it can damage Your system.

After I finally fixed it I realised that it was too late. I went over to an excellent resource in an attempt to solve the problem. Techspot.com. They tried to help me. And after many agonizing hours of scans, reboots and more scans I thought the problem was fixed. No-o-o. Key system files were completely destroyed. I was not able to install many of the programs I use. Luckily there is a program that can help that. I downloaded Vista manager from Yamicsoft. The program helps You restore original system files by copying the needed files from Your OS CD/DVD. I did that and things were working normally. But even than it was too late. The system was so freaking slow that I could not do much. Finally I decided to give up and reinstalled the whole thing. I didn’t do a clean install. I installed over what was there. Before I did anything I installed the free firewall from ZoneAlarm, Got a Vundo fix from Norton and installed a trial version of BitDefender’s Antivirus. I did a scan and found 4 Vundo infections.

The system seems to work okay for now. Although I keep receiving notices from ZoneAlarm that someone is trying to hack-in. I will fix that by changing the mac address.

However I am now having an issue with how slow the system is. I got it down to visuals. After I have disabled themes system speeded up enourmously. That bugs me a lot. The video card I have should be able to handle it with no problems, but it does not. From time to time the whole system would act like a woman on her “monthly”. I am also using the 4Gig flash drive for ReadyBoost. Still it does not help.

Aside from my card being an older version (it supposed support Vista) I suspect that the crappy motherboard I have is of no help. I guess that I am going to be forced to buy a new board. Gonna be hard to do since I can barely afford much as it is.

I am gonna stick with Vista for now as I still like to play games. But I am seriously considering of switching to Linux and (Iam gonna go to hell for this) buying an XBOX.

If You have any suggestions for me I’d be happy to hear them.

Here is a list of apps I used with torrent downs:

• Zonealarm
• Vista Manager
• Spybot S&D -Freely available.
• BitDefender Antivirus trial – no good torrent found
• Crap cleaner -free program.

Related posts:

1. Damn Vista pt.2
2. Bye-bye Vista
3. NFS: Undercover impressions.