UnNews:Three million hit by Windows worm

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

16 January 2009
BBC News -- A worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users. The malicious program, known as Windows, was first discovered infecting IBM computers in the early 1980's. The early versions did not do much of anything but completely change the interface to a strange, yet colorful GUI, to confuse the user. Later versions of the worm, such as Windows 3.1, continued to do nothing, as they were not yet able to connect to the Internet. As Windows 95 was spotted in 1994, things changed for the worse. This version could connect to the Internet, and download more worms to infect the PC. Each subsequent version has downloaded a total of more than 100 TB of worms into the majority of PCs.

To spot the Windows worm, here's what our security experts say: 1: When your computer starts up, does it say Windows before actually letting you do anything?

2: Does your taskbar have a small colorful flag on its menu button?

3: If you click Start, do most of your programs have the word Windows branded on them?

4: If you click Ctr-Alt-Del, does Windows Task Manager come up, instead of a dialog box asking you how you want to turn off your computer?

If you have any of these symptoms, don't worry. Here's how to remove Windows.

1: Open up your C: drive. Don't be scared when Windows Explorer pops up.

2: Click the Windows folder, and then press Shift+Del. This is a special permanent-delete function that Windows doesn't ever tell you about, in case you try this. 3: Confirm everything. Watch as Windows explodes in your face.

4: You'll soon see Windows throw errors at you. This is common, as Windows has a built-in survival mechanism designed to prevent users from its uninstallation.

5: If all goes according to plan, a blue screen showing an error message will pop up. Put in an MS-DOS boot disk, and restart your computer. The MS-DOS boot disk is the only save haven from Windows, as this ancient OS has long since been forgotten by Windows.

6: Go back to your C: drive using MS-DOS, and use the command rd C:\.

7: All your files will be gone. This is because Windows has infected them all.

8: Now install Linux. All done.

If everything goes according to plan, you should have a perfectly same Linux system under your control, free of any lingering Windows infection.